Bad Bunny’s short film for his Grammy award-winning album ‘Debí Tirar Más Fotos’ is a quiet but striking take on colonialism and gentrification
2 Feb 2026 | Molly Lipson and Natalia Albin
In case you missed it, Bad Bunny won Best Album of the Year for DeBÍ TiRAR MáS FOToS at last night’s Grammy’s. The artist released the album last year on January 5, but two days before it came out, he shared a 13-minute short film on his YouTube channel with the same title that he co-wrote and co-directed alongside Emmy-award winning Puerto Rican director Arí Maniel Cruz Suárez.
The film follows an older man as he reminisces to his animation-rendered frog friend about his youth in Puerto Rico, sharing photos he’d taken but expressing that he wished he’d taken more (a translation of the album title). Outside his traditional finca in the country, set in plush green hills and gleaming with natural beauty, his neighbourhood is becoming increasingly gentrified.
As he walks to his local cafe, a loud, white American family is on their front lawn, a scary-looking Belgian shepherd barking angrily at the man. When the man waves at the family, they only stare back, unfriendly and suspicious. At the cafe itself, the white blonde woman who serves him making no effort to pronounce the Spanish items on the menu, and refuses his cash, which he says he used to be able to use no problem. When another, obviously obviously Puerto Rican customer comes over to pay for his order by card, he says, “Seguimos aquí.” – We’re still here.
Bad Bunny is no stranger to standing up for his homeland. In 2019, he left his European tour to join protests back home against then-mayor Ricardo Rosselló following leaked messages that revealed sexist, homophobic and anti-Puerto Rican sentiment. Bad Bunny, Residente and iLe released the song Afilando los Cuchillos (“Sharpening the Knives”) amidst the protests on July 17. Rosselló announced his resignation on 25 July.
One comment on YouTube encapsulates a few important references non-Spanish speakers, or even non-Puerto Ricans might miss (translated from Spanish): “The frog Concho is a Puerto Rican frog that’s in danger of becoming extinct. Concho represents our culture. What Benito [Bad Bunny] wants to portray with Concho is the cultural extinction that could happen in Puerto Rico.
Quesitos sin queso - A ‘quesito’ is a puerto rican dessert [queso means cheese], so the quesito sin queso is a reference to a Puerto Rico without Puerto Ricans, a phrase that came up in the leaked messages between former mayor Ricardo Roselló and his publicist Edwin Miranda where Miranda said: I saw the future. It's so wonderful, there are no Puerto Ricans.”
The film is a tribute to Bad Bunny’s continued dedication to his island, a cinematic musing on the nature of memory in the fight against imperialism. “The gentrification of Puerto Rico isn’t just a loss of land – it’s a loss of self, a displacement that feels deeply personal to those who call the archipelago home. Similarly, the man in the film reflects on the life he’s lived, the things he’s missed, and the irreversible tide of time. Change, the film suggests, is inevitable – but not all change is progress. Some change damages. Some change erases,” writes Denise Zubizarreta at Latina Media Co. (Zubizarreta’s article is a brilliant deep dive into the short and the expansive artistry of Latine artists - we really recommend a read.)
Debí Tirar Más Fotos the short film isn’t an extended music video – it barely features any of Bad Bunny’s music – nor a promotional album video, like Argentinian duo CA7RIEL & Paco Amoroso’s brilliant PAPOTA or BAÑO MARÍA. Instead, Debí Tirar Más Fotos is a form of narrative poetry, a quiet but striking take on colonialisation, gentrification and preserving culture in a world that seems more determined than ever to homogenise.