A winter storm deposited a foot of snow on the Kansas City area over the weekend. Trapped inside their homes with little better to do, neighbors monitored my progress as I shoveled on Monday, January 6. My driveway never seemed so long.
Between the debilitating cold and a thin layer of ice, success didn’t seem probable. What doubters couldn’t know is that I was powered by the album Bad Bunny released a few hours earlier.
Debí Tirar Más Fotos is a 62-minute survey of the past fifty years of Puerto Rican music. While it’s still loaded with the gaudy decadence associated with Bad Bunny, Debí Tirar Más Fotos is the most sophisticated album yet from my 2020 Artist of the Year. For every allusion to contemporary pop there’s a reference to vintage Fania Records.
I managed to clear a thirty-foot path from my garage to the street during the first two plays of Debí Tirar Más Fotos. An impressed neighbor sent a congratulatory text as I thawed out during the third of what’s certain to be dozens of rotations of Debí Tirar Más Fotos in 2025.