WATCH: Bad Bunny Brings Puerto Rican Parranda to ‘The Tonight Show’
Courtesy of Spotify.
Bad Bunny stopped by The Tonight Show with Jimmy Fallon as the night’s co-host, where he not only performed and talked about his new album but also did a surprise performance in the New York City subway station in disguise, interviewed guests with the talk show host, and overall threw one big parranda.
In an electrifying performance, Benito wowed the audience with the first television performance of his song, “VOY A LLeVARTE A PR,” where he sang atop a washing machine and rapped the lyrics to his song with a marksman-like precision. In the song, he sings about meeting a woman in the States and wanting to bring her back to his homeland to show her a good time.
Benito’s latest album, Debí Tirar Mas Fotos, is an exuberant love letter to his home country of Puerto Rico. In interviews about the project, he’s talked about how the time away from his island these last few years made him feel an overwhelming amount of homesickness, so he wanted to pay homage to the island and its history. His late-night appearance on Fallon was no different.
On last night’s episode, Benito and Fallon went into one of the busiest subway stations in New York City and posed as buskers to provide entertainment for commuters. Donning fake beards, glasses, and wigs, the two perform “I Want It That Way” by the Backstreet Boys. But then they toss off their disguises and immediately switch to singing “NUEVAYoL” as the crowd starts to realize who it is and sing along with him. The excited fans burst out into song with him while Fallon plays the tambourine.
But the appearance brimming with Puerto Rican pride doesn’t stop there. During Fallon’s monologue, Bad Bunny surprised the audience (and the show’s host) with a parranda, accompanied by a group of people slapping tambourines as the band played his song “CAFé CON RON.” Toñita, the owner of New York City’s last-standing Caribbean social club named after the establishment’s matriarch in the gentrified neighborhood of Williamsburg, was placed in the front row, and Benito kissed her hands as the parranda circled the audience before ending on stage.
He sat down beside Fallon to talk with Linus Sebastian to try out some new gadgets that were on display at the CES convention that recently took place in Las Vegas, NV. Karla Sofía Gascón also stopped by to talk about the film she stars, Emilia Perez, which is currently getting a lot of buzz around awards season.
When it came time for him to talk about his own project, Bad Bunny talked with Fallon about what this album meant to him and the Puerto Rican community. He explains the title, which translates to “I should have taken more photos, ” meaning “that I should have embraced and appreciated, more the moment, the present. I should have appreciated more the people who are around me, the people who love me.”
It was only fitting that he announced he would be treating his home country to a 21-show residency called “No Me Quiero Ir de Aqui” at the Coliseo de Puerto Rico in San Juan. In a video he posted on social media, he acknowledged the demand for him to visit different countries around the world but said he is focusing on his home country right now.
Check out the performance below.