NEED TO KNOW
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Bad Bunny released the video for his latest single, “NUEVAYoL”, on Friday, July 4
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It features a voice that has an uncanny similarity to President Donald Trump
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In the video — which comes days after Trump toured the newly opened I.C.E. detention facility “Alligator Alcatraz,” — the voice apologizes to Americans, stating that the country “is nothing without immigrants”
Bad Bunny dropped the video for his single “NUEVAYoL” on Friday, July 4, featuring a cameo from a voice that sounds suspiciously like President Donald Trump.
The retro-styled video, directed by Renell Medrano, begins with scenes of the Puerto Rican artist attending a classic-looking quinceañera, complete with a nervous 15-year-old honoree, dancing chambelanes and a host of raucous family members.
The song, from Bad Bunny’s latest album, Debí Tirar Más Fotos, samples “Un Verano en Nueva York” by Andy Montañez and El Gran Combo de Puerto Rico, adding to the retro feel.
However, in keeping with the 31-year-old artist’s recent releases, there are also a few pointed political messages. One shot of the video shows Bad Bunny saluting from the crown of the Statue of Liberty, which has been draped in a Puerto Rican flag.
Immediately following that shot, the video cuts to a group of men standing around a 1970s-style boombox. The voice emanating from the speaker is a soundalike of President Trump, only the words are nothing like his usual rhetoric.’
“I made a mistake,” the voice says. “I want to apologize to the immigrants in America. I mean the United States. I know America is the whole continent.”
Bad Bunny/YouTube
Bad Bunny’s NUEVAYoL music video
“I want to say that this country is nothing without the immigrants. This country is nothing without Mexicans, Dominicans, Puerto Ricans, Colombians, Venezuelans, Cubans,” it continues, before the men shut it off and walk away.
The video ends with images of the Puerto Rican diaspora in New York, some in black and white, but all keeping with the retro feel. It ends with a simple message in text: “juntos somos mas fuertes,” or “together we are stronger.”
The “NUEVAYoL” video follows a week of the administration’s continued escalation of anti-immigration policies.
Bad Bunny/YouTube
Bad Bunny in the NUEVAYoL music video
On Tuesday, July 1, Trump toured the newly opened “Alligator Alcatraz,” an I.C.E. detention facility built in the Florida Everglades in just eight days. The massive warehouse, full of chain link dividers and hundreds of bunk beds, will be a holding area for up to 5,000 ICE detainees.
The administration has touted the area’s surrounding wildlife — which includes alligators, panthers and pythons — as an added measure of security.
“You don’t always have land so beautiful and so secure [with] a lot of bodyguards and a lot of cops in the form of alligators that you don’t have to pay them so much,” Trump told reporters.
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Recent years have seen Bad Bunny using his platform to send more and more powerful political messages, in his music — particularly Debí Tirar Más Fotos — and beyond.
After comedian Tony Hinchcliffe called Puerto Rico a “floating island of garbage” during a Trump rally at Madison Square Garden last October, Bad Bunny released an eight-minute video celebrating his homeland.
Captioned simply “garbage,” the clip — which was originally shown before 2021 Bad Bunny concerts in Puerto Rico, but never released publicly — highlighted the island’s sporting legends and musical innovations, praising the nation as “the definition of heart and resistance.”
In a January 2025 interview with Rolling Stone, Bad Bunny opened up about his decision to be more outspoken about his political beliefs and the criticism that might come from it.
“People are used to artists getting big and mainstream and not expressing themselves about these things, or if they do, talking about it in a super careful way,” he said. “But I’m going to talk, and whoever doesn’t like it doesn’t have to listen to me.”
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