Bad Bunny Got Reggaeton's Origin Story Wrong

When Bad Bunny took the Super Bowl halftime stage in 2026, he made sure everyone knew where his music came from. "'Tás escuchando música de Puerto Rico," he rapped—"You're listening to music from Puerto Rico." But here's the thing: he's only half right.

While Puerto Rican artists like Bad Bunny certainly popularized reggaeton globally, they didn't create it. The genre's true birthplace lies 1,200 miles south, in the small Central American nation of Panama, where a perfect storm of colonialism, racism, and linguistic tension gave birth to what would become the world's most dominant Latin music genre.

So why does this matter? And what does reggaeton's real origin story tell us about how culture travels—and gets rewritten?

When Three Empires Collided in Panama

To understand reggaeton, you need to understand Panama in the 19th century—a cultural pressure cooker where Spanish, British, and American influences crashed into each other.

After gaining independence from Spain in 1821, Panama became part of Gran Colombia. Throughout the 1800s, waves of Afro-Caribbean immigrants flooded northern Panama, seeking economic opportunities. Since they came from former British colonies, many spoke English. Meanwhile, the Afro-Panamanians already living there—descendants of enslaved Africans—spoke Spanish.

This created two distinct Black communities: Spanish-speaking Afro-Panamanians and English-speaking West Indians. They worked side by side building the trans-Isthmus railroad, but their different languages, colonial histories, and cultures often put them at odds.

Then came 1903. The U.S. backed Panama's independence from Gran Colombia—not out of altruism, but strategy. America wanted to build and control the Panama Canal, securing influence over Western Hemisphere maritime trade and military movement.

Jim Crow Comes to the Canal Zone

During canal construction, the U.S. operated the 553-square-mile Panama Canal Zone. Up to 60,000 people lived there, segregated by race into "gold roll" and "silver roll" workers. Gold roll meant white and privileged. Silver roll meant Black and dangerous.

The statistics were stark: white Canal Zone residents had access to healthcare and proper sanitation. Black workers—both Afro-Panamanian and Caribbean immigrants—were far more likely to contract and die from malaria. Police brutality was rampant, with Black women particularly targeted and frequently accused of sex work.

But here's where it gets interesting: Americans treated English-speaking West Indians better than Spanish-speaking Afro-Panamanians. Canal Zone schools taught only English, which infuriated the local Spanish-speaking population.

This linguistic favoritism sparked "panameñismo"—a movement to preserve Spanish language and Panamanian culture. It culminated in restrictive immigration laws targeting West Indians and stripping second-generation immigrants of their citizenship.

Yet many Jamaican, Barbadian, and Antillean immigrants stayed in Panama even after the canal's completion in 1914. Their musical legacy would prove transformative.

The Birth of Reggaeton: 1985

In the 1960s and '70s, Jamaicans introduced mento, ska, and dancehall to Panama. Initially sung in English and Jamaican Patois, these genres quickly evolved into "reggae en español." Simultaneously, hip-hop from the U.S. was making its way to Panama, where American military presence remained strong.

From this musical melting pot emerged reggaeton: featuring dancehall's looping "dembow riddim," reggae's tropical vibe, and a mixture of rapping and singing. Like its predecessors, reggaeton emphasized Black solidarity and spoke out against racial oppression and police violence.

Panamanian artist Renato released what's credited as the first reggaeton song, "El D.E.N.I.," in 1985. The D.E.N.I.—National Department of Investigations—was the secret police force under Panama's military dictatorships of Omar Torrijos and later Manuel Noriega. The organization became entangled in drug trafficking and political corruption.

In the song, Renato assumed the voice of a racist police officer he encountered after relocating from the Canal Zone to Rio Abajo, an impoverished Panama City neighborhood:

"Con mi cara albina, te puedo golpear" (With my albino face, I can hit you)

The track became a protest anthem against Panama's military government.

Puerto Rico Takes It Mainstream

While reggaeton was born in Panama, it went global from Puerto Rico—largely thanks to Daddy Yankee. American brands like Kellogg's and Reebok featured his songs in ads broadcast to U.S. audiences. But his music largely stripped away the social justice themes that characterized early reggaeton.

Meanwhile, Black Puerto Rican artist Tego Calderón struggled to find a buyer for his 2003 debut album "El Abayarde" after being told he was "too ugly" for a musical career—a remark rooted in Puerto Rico's pervasive anti-Blackness.

The contrast was telling: reggaeton could go mainstream, but only if it abandoned its roots and its Black creators.

Bad Bunny's Return to Resistance

Though Bad Bunny may have reggaeton's geography wrong, his music returns to the genre's social justice origins. His Super Bowl performance of "LO QUE LE PASÓ A HAWAii" with Ricky Martin described U.S. colonialism in both Hawaii and Puerto Rico:

"Quieren quitarme el río y también la playa" (They want to take the river and the beach away from me)

And while early-2000s reggaeton often contained misogyny and homophobia, Bad Bunny's tracks like "Yo Perreo Sola" and "YO VISTO ASÍ" build on feminist reggaeton anthems like Ivy Queen's "Yo Quiero Bailar."