Bad Bunny has been on vacation since his feature on Cardi B’s “I Like It” became the song of the summer, hitting the number one spot on the Billboard Hot 100. But El Conejo Malo (aka Benito Antonio Martínez Ocasio) got back to business for long enough to connect the song’s success to a rising Latino musical tide in a letter penned for Billboard:
“The best two things of all this is with the people that share this achievement, I love that this has happened with Cardi and J Balvin,” said the Puerto Rican trapero, who along with Balvin turned in a Spanish-language verse for the single. Cardi B has admitted her surprise that the bilingual banger was able to get as popular as it has. “And the other was to be able to wear the shirt of the baseball team of my country PUERTO RICO! So that the world knows that I’m a BORICUA! Latino Gang!!!”
But the statement didn’t end there. It’s no secret that Bad Bunny has challenged Trump’s reactionary administration — last October, in the aftermath of Hurricane María, he sported a self-designed T-shirt asking “¿Tu eres twitero o presidente?” It stands to reason that Benito would use this new moment of Hot 100 triumph to call out the president’s anti-immigrant fixation. Indeed, in the letter he continued, “I already understand why Trump wants to build a wall: it is because he knows that Latinos will conquer the world and he is afraid!!!”
Read the full letter over at Billboard.