Bad Bunny Goes to Mexico, Comes Back With a Corrido: Hear ‘Soy El Diablo’

When visiting Mexico, most tourists are happy to bring home T-shirts, bottles of tequila, or novelty mugs as souvenirs. But after a successful run of tour dates in Mexico, in support of his album, X 100Pre, Bad Bunny sought the most uniquely Mexican souvenir he could find: a corrido, or narrative Mexican folk ballad.

In his latest release, the trap-reggaeton star tapped the urban regional Mexican label, Rancho Humilde, for a collaboration that would bridge the gap between regional Mexican music and Puerto Rican música urbana. El Conejo Malo then connected with the urban corrido, or corrido tumbado artiste, Natanael Cano — and emerged with a remix of his gritty 2019 track, “Soy El Diablo” (“I Am the Devil”). Taking cues from the Sonora native, Bunny sings Cano’s lines in his unmistakably Caribbean accent, over furious strums of acoustic guitar.

“Para mi gente linda de Mexico, Puerto Rico, Latinoamerica/Eso es pa’ toda mi raza/ America es nuestra casa,” adds Bad Bunny — using the song as a platform to promote unity among all Latinx communities. “This is for my beautiful people in Mexico, Puerto Rico, Latin America/This is for my race/America is our house!”

Bad Bunny chased his tequila-fueled release with a string of New England tour dates — and a stint as guest lecturer at Harvard University. If we can count on Bad Bunny to do one thing, it’s to make anything interesting.

“Enjoy life! Do new things always and be happy!!!” he captioned a recent Instagram video, in which he downs tequila shots to his new song. “Today, the tequila shots are in your name!”