“La Romana” is more than just a standout track on Bad Bunny’s X100PRE. The trapchata favorite — which also features the Dominican dembow artist El Alfa — shot to the no. 5 slot on Billboard’s Latin Digital Songs sales chart when it first came out, secured 34 million views on YouTube, and gave us the beloved refrain “¡Pásame la hookah!”
But now it’s done something ever bigger: It’s helped the youth pass math class.
Some kids from Puerto Rico’s Escuela del Deporte de San Juan recently posted a video of a performance they did for one their classes. In it, they’ve reworked the lyrics to the song and made them all about math. The sound quality of the video isn’t great, but you get a sense of their ingenuity when the beat flips and they break out into a “La matemática ‘ta en fuego, fuego, fire” chant. Plus, one of the kids raps a solo verse that includes bars like “Somos la hipotenusa/Ustedes el cateto.”
It was all live and we’re kind of impressed with their flow.
One of the students posted the clip on Facebook with the comment, “Learn how to teach math.” We’re inclined to agree. If “La Romana” had been incorporated into our Algebra II classes, we probably would’ve gotten better grades.
The video had more than 106,000 views as of Monday, and it was recently picked up by reggaeton site Rapetón. It’s gone viral enough that Bad Bunny has even retweeted the clip on his own account, so we’re hoping he’ll do his own rendition of their song.
One thing’s for sure: Schoolhouse Rock, you’re irrelevant. Bad Bunny and El Alfa are our new educational leaders.