Meet LoS SOBRiNOS, Bad Bunny’s Tiny Desk & ‘DTmF’ Band
Photo by Juan J. Arroyo.
Towards the end of his highly anticipated Tiny Desk episode, Bad Bunny goes around and introduces the musicians accompanying him. At one point, he playfully hunches over, allowing himself to get lost in the thrumming sounds of the bass strings, and sways to the rhythm with a smile plastered on his face. As he lifts himself up, he looks out at the crowd, beaming like a proud uncle. “You won’t see anyone play the bass with more flow than Krystal Santana. Just so you know,” he says. The audience erupts in cheers, cosigning the sentiment. And over the next few days, millions would come to fall in love with his band as well.
On Monday (Apr. 7), NPR Music dropped the latest installment of their Tiny Desk Concert series, featuring Benito Antonio himself, aka Bad Bunny. As called for by the stripped-down format of the production, he showed up with a backing band in tow, though this hasn’t been a particularly new development for him as of late. Since the release of his hit album, DeBÍ TiRAR MáS FOToS, he’s been performing live with a group of young musicians that call themselves LoS SOBRiNOS (or ThE NEPHeWS.) Since then, they’ve followed him to The Tonight Show starring Jimmy Fallon and Saturday Night Live’s 50th Anniversary Homecoming Concert.
The Puerto Rican superstar first began collaborating with LoS SOBRiNOS during the recording of DTmF, where the camaraderie became so close they began to refer to him as “Tío Beno.” The main lineup of the group was set during those sessions and is headlined by producer “Big” Jay Anthony Núñez and musical director and percussion virtuoso Julito Gastón. Both came to the attention of Benito and his team via social media. Núñez made a salsa remix of a Bryant Myers track that impressed the “NUEVAYoL” singer, and a viral video of then-14-year-old Gastón directing a youth orchestra spurred Bad Bunny into mobilizing his team to locate and recruit him. The rest of the group was put together by Gastón, who found most in public music schools, specifically the Escuela Libre de Música de San Juan Ernesto Ramos Antonini and the Escuela Pablo Casals in Bayamón.
The full roster is made up of trombonists Jorge Echevarría, Oscar Oller and Darnell Febres, trumpeters Luis Figueroa and Roig Berríos, timbalero Edgar Salamán, percussionists Ayani Ortiz and Ronyel Guzmán, bassist Krystal Santana, and pianist Sebastián Torres (who inspired Benito’s now-classic “Aprieta, chamaquito, aprieta!” ad lib in “BAILE INoLVIDABLE”). Gastón, Núñez, and Santana joined Bad Bunny at his Tiny Desk performance, alongside other invited musicians, some of whom also played an integral part in DTmF: pianist and Latin Grammy nominee Luis Amed Irizarry who served as musical arranger for the show, Emanuel Santana and also-Latin Grammy nominee Luis Sanz whom respectively played the güicharo and cuatro on “LO QUE LE PASÓ A HAWAii,” and cuatrista Fabiola Mari Méndez who has three albums under her belt and had her own Tiny Desk concert back in September. “I can listen to this all day,” remarked Benito as Méndez did her solo during the concert.
Viewers tuning in were exposed to the music of many traditional Puerto Rican instruments, which were also present in the album. String instruments like the cuatro, bordonúa, and tiple matched with claves, bongos, congas, güiros, and more to recreate music that has been important to the archipelago’s culture for over a century. It’s important to note that none of this music ever truly disappeared from Puerto Rico’s soundscape. Salsa has always been tremendously popular, even if that popularity has peaked at more times than others. Bomba, plena, and other Afro-Caribbean or jíbaro genres have been kept alive by local music festivals, workshops, and musicians around the archipelago who put on shows that captivate with their dynamic range of instrumentation and dances.
Fusing reggaeton with these genres isn’t a brand-new development, either. Decades ago, artists like Tego Calderón, Eddie Dee, Julio Voltio, La Sista, La Tribu de Abrante, and producers like Yai & Toly were at the forefront of demonstrating that it was feasible to mix perreo sensibilities with Antillean folk music. Albums like El Abayarde, 12 Discípulos, Los Cocorocos, Salsatón, Tributo Urbano A Héctor Lavoe, and Majestad Negroide paved the way for a magnum opus like DeBÍ TiRAR MáS FOToS.
It’s a testament to Bad Bunny and his team’s character that their vision of a contemporary album by and for Puerto Ricans included bringing these native rhythms to the forefront and trusting that they would connect with his fans and beyond without compromise.
The incessant myth that only older audiences enjoy folk music has been stress-tested by Benito’s album, and duly shattered. Not only because its music was made by young artists who have dedicated themselves to it, but by the breadth of its acceptance and popularity. The excitement around his Tiny Desk performance and the acclaim his band has received is even more proof that when the will to give it a platform is there, this music doesn’t have to be relegated to yesteryear and can (and must) still have a space today for everyone to experience and enjoy.