It was Christmas Eve when multiple new Instagram followers slid into Jorell Melendez-Badillo’s DMs, all with the same question: would the historian be interested in collaborating with Bad Bunny?
Bad Bunny, one of the globe’s biggest stars, was preparing to release his sixth studio album, “Debi Tirar Mas Fotos” — “I Should’ve Taken More Photos” — a love letter to his home Puerto Rico.
And the reggaeton artist born Benito Martinez Ocasio wanted Melendez-Badillo — who had recently published the book “Puerto Rico: A National History,” a study of the island’s colonial history and its political movements — to consult on the visualizers the megastar would release with his new tracks.
The release date was January 5 — less than two weeks after Melendez-Badillo was brought in.
“I had promised my partner, my kid, my therapist, that I was going to leave my computer behind,” he laughed, saying at the time they were vacationing in Portugal.
