"In the bus the smell of your perfume stays," sings Bad Bunny in a song that has accumulated more than 1 billion views on YouTube. Benito Antonio Martínez Ocasio (Bayamón, Puerto Rico, 1994) has sold more than 600,000 tickets for his tour in Spain. Amidst wars, political and judicial news, the Latin American artist has carved out a niche in the global industry and in social debate with a discourse marked by the vindication of his Caribbean identity and the exposure of US colonialism over the Antillean territory where he was born.
After his appearance at the Super Bowl halftime show (Super Tazón, as he renamed it), where he defied the xenophobic discourse of US President Donald Trump and his anti-immigration policies, Bad Bunny is immersed in the DtmF tour of Spain, which has become one of the media focal points of the moment.
During one of his concerts, Bad Bunny recalled his stay in the Canary Islands in 2017: "What I remember most about my first tour in Europe was when I went to the Canary Islands because I felt that the accent was similar to Puerto Rico's." And he is not wrong.
The relationship between the Canary Islands and the Caribbean has been a migratory history "back and forth," explains Juan Manuel Santana Pérez, a professor of History at the University of Las Palmas de Gran Canaria (ULPGC) and an expert in Modern History, during an interview with La Voz. This shared history explains why salsa, merengue, and later reggaeton were heard in the Canary Islands before anywhere else in Spain, and also why we share linguistic terms and accent similarities.
"In the Canary Islands, there is a series of unofficial anthems," continues Ángel Dámaso Luis, an expert in Atlantic History from the University of La Laguna. For example, Santa Cruz en Carnaval by the Venezuelan orchestra Billo's Caracas Boys or Marejada by Roberto Antonio. "This has to do with cultural circularity with the Caribbean," points out Luis, who explains that musical influences reached the Canary Islands from various Caribbean territories, such as Venezuela, Cuba, Santo Domingo, or Puerto Rico, due to continuous migratory movements.
"In the Canary Islands, a Latin American culture has been vindicated for a long time," adds Juan Manuel Santana, explaining that this self-identification as Latinos has been losing strength recently, but that Canary Islanders have always felt culturally closer to Latin America than to the peninsula.
The Crown used Canary Islanders to defend its dominion over the Caribbean
To unravel the cultural ties between the Canary Islands and Puerto Rico, it is necessary to make a very brief review of the last centuries. The territory of Puerto Ricans was for more than four centuries, between 1493 and 1898, a colony in the hands of the Spanish Crown. In 1496, the Kingdom of Castile also concluded the military conquest of the Canary Islands, in which it was involved for more than a century and despite the resistance of the aborigines. When the Spaniards consolidated their control over Puerto Rico and the Canary Islands, the first voyages between the two archipelagos were not long in coming.
However, it was not until the 17th and 18th centuries that emigration from the Canary Islands to the Caribbean was consolidated, first promoted by private interests and then by the Crown itself, which wanted to protect the Puerto Rican territory from the arrival of pirates and corsairs. The logic was "to defend it, you have to repopulate it," indicates Professor Juan Manuel Santana, who explains that "in areas that could be attacked, they tried to send people."
Throughout the 18th century, the Kingdom of Spain offered poor Canary families, who were usually engaged in agriculture, a charter that allowed them to break with the trade monopoly concentrated in Seville. In exchange, they had to move with their entire family to live in Puerto Rico. On the other side of the pond, the Canarians worked the land, but also protected the territory. This logic was later repeated in other occupied territories on the continent.
The Canarians who went to the Caribbean shared the purpose of many migrants: "Make money and return," explains Santana. Even so, not all of them returned; some even participated in the founding of Puerto Rican municipalities such as Mayagüez, Manatí, or Vega Alta.
From Boricua to Canary Identity
These centuries of movement between territories meant a social and cultural transfer, not only with Puerto Rico, but with countries such as Venezuela, Cuba, and Santo Domingo. From Lanzarote, migrations to Uruguay and Argentina were also added.
The expert in Atlantic History at the University of La Laguna, Ángel Dámaso Luis, explains these cultural ties as "a dialogue with the Caribbean." "There are elements that return with those who come back, which influence how culture is built in the Canary Islands and even its political identity," he adds.
That currently Canary Islanders proudly wave their flag at Bad Bunny concerts or that Quevedo with El Baifo (2026) has boosted an album that claims his idea of Canarian identity, collaborating with two artists of Puerto Rican roots, Elvis Crespo or Tony Tun Tun, shows this constant dialogue between the Caribbean and the Canary Islands. However, this phenomenon is not new on the islands.
From Willie Colón to Las K-Narias
Although currently the charts welcome hundreds of reggaeton and urban music songs sung in Spanish from Latin America and Spain, this triumph of Latin culture does not reach the Canary archipelago in the same way as the peninsula. "The Canary Islands are already fertile ground," indicates Luis, who recalls that on the islands there is already "a predisposition and a taste" for Latin rhythms cultivated for centuries.
For example, he explains that when salsa began to conquer the music market in the 70s and 80s, Puerto Ricans Ray Barreto, Willie Colón, Héctor Lavoe, or Gran Combo de Puerto Rico arrived in the Canary Islands through migratory connections with Venezuela.
At the same time that these rhythms arrived, "endogenous phenomena" were created in the Canary Islands, influenced by those sounds with Afro-Caribbean influences. "These are phenomena that will adapt to the local public and generate a response from the Canary Islands to that taste," continues the ULL professor. From these phenomena created in the Canary Islands, Las K-Narias, Caracas Latin Brothers, and now Quevedo were born. "It's not something from Quevedo's generation, nor from my generation, it's something that spans several generations," points out Luis.
Racism and rejection
Against the imposition of Anglo-Saxon culture, the sounds of reggaeton, bomba, and plena have infiltrated the main playlists and concert venues in Europe. While music in Latin American and Caribbean Spanish has been occupying spaces, a counter-discourse of rejection of these sounds has continued to be encouraged.
"On a collective level, there is a rejection of certain rhythms, which I don't know if it occurs in a racial, xenophobic, or social context, as they are sounds that come from the neighborhood, but they are rejected," explains Luis. The expert concludes that this rejection is, at times, "oversized" and "elitist," as it does not attack other Western and European rhythms equally.
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