Welcome to the first edition of The Wichitan’s song of the week for the 2022-2023 academic year. In celebration of Hispanic Heritage Month, the song of this week is “Efecto” by Puerto Rican singer and rapper Bad Bunny. Released May 6 as the tenth track on the Puerto Rican rapper’s fifth studio album, “Un Verano Sin Ti,” “Efecto” is a song about Bad Bunny being in love and the effects his lover has on him. Following its release, “Efecto” was received with overwhelming support not just from Bad Bunny’s Hispanic/Latinx fans, but from his non-Hispanic fans as well, of whom I am a proud member.

Benito Antonio Ocasio Martinez, better known by his stage name Bad Bunny, is a Grammy winning singer-songwriter, rapper and, most recently, actor. Since his rise to fame in 2016, Bad Bunny has easily become one of the most successful Latin pop and reggaeton singers in the music industry. Although Bad Bunny is a Puerto Rican artist performing Latin music mostly to a Latin audience, his music has been greatly welcomed by non-Latin natives and people across the world and especially here in the United States. 

“Efecto” is my favorite song on his “Un Verano Sin Ti” album, and one of my top five favorites from his entire discography. “Efecto” speaks about the feeling of being in love and what that can do to a person. The instrumental composition of the song in combination with Benito’s soft singing and percussive rapping creates an audio that induces in the listener an understanding of the feelings he sings about.

Although the song is sung entirely in Spanish, this reporter took the liberty of learning what each phrase and sentence in the song means, which gave me the ability to enjoy the song on a deeper level. Although Benito is well known for his lyricality, the lyrics in the song perfectly solidified that for me. Albeit the explicit nature of the song, the lyrics speaks of the frustrated but blissful nature of being in love. My favorite lyric in the entire song is:

“Dime qué me hiciste, qué droga me diste

Que desde aquella noche no soy igual

Tú me mira’ y empiezo a sudar

Siento que puedo volar.”

Which translates to:

“Tell me what you did to me, what drug did you give me

Cause I haven’t been the same ever since that night

You look at me and I start sweating

I feel like I can fly.”

Being in love is a feeling a lot of people can relate to and “Efecto” in a nutshell explains and puts that feeling into song. The song is a great listen and I highly recommend you listen to it.