Just weeks after dropping a thematically otherworldly pair of glam-rock tunes, B. Jacques Express is back with yet another installment of rock ‘n’ roll satire. Hailing from the planet Cisgendera 6 — they’re really from Puerto Rico, but let’s play along — and hell-bent on brainwashing the island in the gospel of baby-life, as singer-guitarist Enrique Olivares explained in a recent interview with Remezcla, their first coup successfully highlighted the genre’s creepy obsession with infantilization.
Now, on their newest track, another layer is added to the mythos as they spotlight someone Olivares believes to be the ultimate baby: Puerto Rico’s governor-elect Ricardo Rosselló.
“Vroom Vroom Ricky” condemns the politician with 60s girl group glee, and not specifically for his right-wing policies. The title refers to two instances in which Rosselló steered himself directly into controversy; most tragically, a 1994 car crash that resulted in the death of a mother and son. There was another person with him, and whether or not he was the one driving is a fact likely obscured by influence: His father, Pedro Rosselló, was governor at the time, and young Ricky ultimately faced no charges.
Two years after that incident, Olivares says, Rosselló “was caught using one of the 4-tracks, an official government [ATV], for leisure on the beach, and there were some reserves for turtle eggs…and he ran over them with his 4-track.”
Hence the single’s cover image by local artist Javi Matu: On a beach, atop the crushed eggs of leatherback turtles — a critically endangered species, by the way — sits a smiling Ricky, gripping the ATV handlebars and sporting a USA tank top.
Finding concrete information about either scandal online isn’t easy, though.
“These two events are glossed over; they’re not [explained]. You’re not going to find that,” Olivares says. “You’re going to find [information] about his measures against gay marriage, right, but you aren’t going to find about this…strange manslaughter case that you don’t know the extent [of] and the whole ecological destruction of these endangered animals.”
That’s not the full span of Rosselló slams, either. The irony of a pro-Statehood stance during a wave of decreased proficiency in English among politicians in power, Puerto Rico’s role as a narco-state, La Junta de Control Fiscal, and more get called out by B. Jacques Express in the lyrics below:
“Vroom Vroom Ricky”
Vroom Vroom Ricky
Vroom Vroom Ricky
Vroom Vroom Ricky Vroom (x4)
Papi, Papi, préstame las llaves
pa’l perico y el four track
Papi, Papi, tengo una fiebre
que yo quiero quemar
¡Solo quiero bellaquear con la estadidad!
Vroom Vroom Ricky
Vroom Vroom Ricky
Vroom Vroom Ricky Vroom (x2)
Papi, Papi, dime que soy bruto
por querer la austeridad
A aplastar todos los caseríos
como huevos de tinglar
Puerto Rico, yo soy tu futuro
¡Yo y la junta te romperemos el culo!
Vroom Vroom Ricky
Vroom Vroom Ricky
Vroom Vroom Ricky Vroom (x4)
¡Ahora to’ el mundo a capear en inglés!
(Hace calor, hace calor)
51 estrellas
(Hace calor, hace calor)
No más negros en la escena
(Hace calor, hace calor)
La familia es una institución
(Hace calor, hace calor)
¡El rocanról es una aberración
y Puerto Rico yo soy tu gobernador!
Vroom Vroom Ricky
Vroom Vroom Ricky
Vroom Vroom Ricky Vroom (x4)
Fuera los gays
Arriba la palma
Arriba la derecha cristiana (x2)