It's been close to a month since Bad Bunny dropped his fourth studio album "Un Verano Sin Ti" [1] and yet many of us have yet to retire it from our weekly album rotation. We've revisited and dissected certain songs over again, only to find new meaning and appreciation every time. One of the album's songs that lends itself to in-depth exploration is "El Apagón," which translates to The Blackout. It's a song not just about the blackouts and power outage issues happening in Puerto Rico, but it also confronts political corruption and US settler colonialism that's led to gentrification displacement on the island. But here's the thing: Benito is far from the only artist bringing awareness to an exhausting issue while also reminding folks that his pride, joy, and loyalty remain with Puerto Rico. There's been a collective of Puerto Rican artists from across mediums who are using their artistry, their platforms, and their storytelling to get the message across loud and clear and one of them is philanthropist, activist, graphic novelist, and writer and creator of La Borinqueña comics [2], Edgardo Miranda-Rodriguez [3].

"Maldita sea, otro apagón. Vamo' pa' lo' bleacher a prender un blunt antes que Pipo le dé un bofetón (Damn it another blackout. Let's go to the bleachers and light up a blunt, before I give Pipo a slap)," is one of the lyrics of Bad Bunny's "El Apagón." Pipo is a nickname referring to the island's governor Pedro Pierluisi, a former coal lobbyist that has done little to nothing to resolve Puerto Rico's frequent blackouts and power outage problems. It's a topic Miranda-Rodriguez is passionate about and has tackled in his La Borinqueña comics. In fact, in 2017 in response to Hurricane Maria, he published his best-selling anthology "Ricanstruction: Reminiscing & Rebuilding Puerto Rico. [4]" Not only did the sales from this anthology go towards non-profit organizations based in Puerto Rico to help the island recover but a year later he and his wife Kyung Jeon-Miranda created La Boriqueña Grants program [5] to fund the rebuilding of Puerto Rico.

"If you listen to Gabriela Berlingeri' [6]s (Bad Bunny's girlfriend) lyrics at the end of "El Apagón," she's saying: 'Yo no me quiero ir de aquí. No me quiero ir de aquí. Que se vayan ellos. Que se vayan ellos. Que se vayan ellos. Que se vayan ellos. Lo que me pertenece a mí. Se lo quedan ellos. Que se vayan ellos.' And then goes on to sing "Esta es mi playa. Este es mi sol. Esta es mie tierra.' I think the immediate response that people are making is oh, she's probably talking about Act 60-2019 [7] and how that's bringing crypto billionaire colonizers and all these rich entrepreneurs and wealthy investors to Puerto Rico because they don't have to pay for federal tax to live in Puerto Rico. There's all this displacement happening. Maybe that's what she's talking about?" Miranda-Rodriguez asks POPSUGAR. "But maybe it can also be interpreted as a commentary on how our art and our culture is being misrepresented, appropriated, and exploited. Like, get out of our culture. There's a part in 'El Apagón,' where Benito is like 'Ahora todos quieren ser Latino, no ey. Pero les falta sazón.' It's like they all want to be Latin. They all want to be us. But they don't really have what it takes to be us."

It's been almost five years since Hurricane Maria left Puerto Rico's electrical grid in disarray, resulting in frequent power outages that have plagued the island since. Unreliable electricity remains a consistent frustration among natives and residents. Last June, LUMA Energy took over and was supposed to help with the transmission and distribution of electricity across the island but it only made things worse. In April, a power plant fire caused a major blackout [8] that left millions without electricity. It's a consistent issue — among many others — that has literally hindered Puerto Ricans' daily lives and yet not enough has been done about it and not enough awareness around it has been brought to the mainstream.

"Bad Bunny is an incredibly successful pop star but he's also an uncompromised pop star. He literally made an entire album that's saying my love song is to Puerto Rico — to this island and no matter what. Unapologetically," Miranda-Rodriguez says. "I think about the work I've been doing with La Borinqueña for the last six years and the characters in the stories are pretty much trying to preserve Puerto Rico. Preserve our identity in the genre of comics. It's almost my way of saying 'Que se vayan ellos' because we have to protect what's ours. There's nothing niche about this. This is our identity. This is our daily lives. It's who we are."

Weeks after "Un Verano Sin Ti" dropped, Bad Bunny performed "El Apagón" at a bar in Puerto Rico and was ironically interrupted by another blackout [9]. It was literally like a manifestation of a song that speaks to Puerto Rico's severe state of crisis. It's a song that embodies both the richness of the island as well as the tragedy that's persisted. If the news surrounding the reality of what's been happening in Puerto Rico post-Hurricane Maria isn't doing enough to draw people's attention, Bad Bunny was going to make sure his song did.

"As storytellers, we don't have the resources to really push our stories to the extent that Bad Bunny can but there's something universal that's happening where artists from different genres are speaking the same language," Miranda Rodriguez says. "I do it through my La Borinqueña comic books because I see the value in my heritage and in supporting my people using these books... the work that I do invites conversations that says this is beyond just a Puerto Rican issue. This is beyond a Latinx issue. It's a human rights issue."