“This will always be your extended home,” the New York City staple wrote in a note to the Puerto Rican superstar
Bad Bunny opened his latest album triumph Debí Tirar Más Fotos with “NUEVAYoL,” a celebration of his home away from home in New York. “Un shot de cañita en casa de Toñita y PR se siente cerquita,” he boasts on the record. “A shot of rum at Toñita’s house and Puerto Rico feels so close.” The superstar stepped into his makeshift teleportation machine on Sunday evening with a packed party at the Caribbean Social Club, better known as Toñitas.
Bad Bunny was in the company of New York congresswomen Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Nydia Velazquez, the first Puerto Rican woman to serve in Congress. He also saved a dance for Toñita herself, Maria Antonia Cay, who opened the club in the Seventies.
“Gracias por decir presente de nuevo,” Toñita wrote on Instagram, thanking the musician for coming back. They’ve fallen into a new tradition together. In 2024, Bad Bunny stopped in for a grand celebration following the release of Un Verano Sin Ti. “Esta siempre sera tu casa extendida,” the comment continued, translating to: “This will always be your extended home.”
“It’s funny because it’s an album dedicated completely to Puerto Rico, but it starts in New York,” Bad Bunny recently told Rolling Stone. “That was kind of how the album started: Before, when a Puerto Rican would go to the U.S., they’d be like, ‘Me voy pa’ Nueva York!’ So New York would be like shorthand for ‘I went outside of the island’ back in the day. And at the same time, amazing things happened in New York when Latinos, Puerto Ricans were here — we teamed up with Cubans, with Dominicans, there was music, there was art.”
Later tonight, Bad Bunny will appear on The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon.