The Beef Between Dominicans & Puerto Ricans Isn’t Real. Bad Bunny’s DtMF Concerts in DR Are Proof

The rivalry between Puerto Ricans and Dominicans goes back decades. The neighboring islands, and their diasporas in the United States, compete over just about everything. The question of who’s better at baseball is settled nearly every year with a new headline matchup. DR won an exhibition game in New York on November 15, but Puerto Rico defeated them in the 2023 World Baseball Classic. In the kitchen, the feud is between Puerto Rico’s mofongo and the Dominican Republic’s mangú, two garlicky plantain staples. And in music, there's the debates about who has more rhythm on the dancefloor and who makes more hits. An outsider might see these hilarious, albeit pointed, jabs thrown at each other on the Internet and think the two are really enemies, but Bad Bunny’s DeBí TiRAR MáS FOToS World Tour opening in Santo Domingo displayed what we have always known: It’s all playful love entre familia.

On November 21, the Puerto Rican three-time Grammy winner, born Benito Antonio Martínez Ocasio, kicked off his anticipated stadium world tour with two sold-out shows in the Dominican Republic’s capital. On night one, Bad Bunny, who Billboard named the top Latin artist of the 21st century, greeted the crowd of about 50,000 people at Estadio Olímpico Félix Sánchez, saying, “I’ve really enjoyed being a tourist here, though I don’t know if ‘tourist’ is the right word, because when I’m here, I feel at home.” And everything about the show celebrated the shared heritage and close relationship the two islands have built together.

In the audience, Dominican women completed their concert outfits with Puerto Rican pava hats — or, as shouting street vendors throughout la Zona Colonial have renamed them, “el sombrero de Bad Bunny.” Meanwhile, Puerto Rican fans who missed Bad Bunny’s historic 31-show residency at San Juan’s El Choli made the short trip west to Santo Domingo, snapping photos in front of wall-length Dominican flags. 

Hennessy, the global presenting sponsor of the tour, created experiences that blended both cultures seamlessly right outside of the stadium and in Downtown Santo Domingo. In a Hennessy-branded casita by the show, Boris like model Joan Smalls y Domis like actress Dascha Polanco sat down to play dominoes, the two flags in the home, while Alex Sensation spun '70s salsa and merengue típico. Fans refreshed from the Caribbean humidity with Hennessy De Coco, a spin on Pitorro de Coco that blends coconut, tropical fruits, and Hennessy, and Hennessy Pasión, a mix of passionfruit, lemonade, and Hennessy — two cocktails that will be available throughout the tour. At the activations, there was also a piragua stand serving cognac-infused versions of the shaved ice treat popular on Viejo San Juan’s cobblestone streets and classic Dominican chimis. 

The blend made sense because most of us, those with roots in Borikén or Kiskeya, have known it our entire lives.

While our shared history can be traced back to the Taínos, the Indigenous people who once inhabited the islands of the Greater Antilles, and the Spanish conquest that brought violent genocide and African enslavement, less discussed is the solidarity that emerged from this joint struggle. For generations, Puerto Ricans and Dominicans have stood together, lending support and fighting alongside each other in anti-colonial and social justice movements. 

To start, the Dominican Republic’s fight for sovereignty, first in 1821 and then in 1844, served as a symbolic and inspirational model for Puerto Rican nationalists. During their bids for independence in the nineteenth century, Puerto Rican revolutionaries often took refuge in Santo Domingo, where they could safely organize, network with nationalists across the Caribbean, and publish anti-colonial materials. In 1868, when Puerto Ricans first revolted against Spanish rule during el Grito de Lares, they stitched a revolutionary flag featuring a white cross that divided the flag into four rectangles, a tribute to the Dominican flag and to the trans-Caribbean revolutionary network.

Decades later, now as a U.S. colony, the people of Puerto Rico are using the political power they do have to push back against the federal government’s anti-immigrant policies in Puerto Rico, which have predominantly targeted Dominican migrants. Boricuas regularly take to the streets to protest raids, deportations, and anti-immigrant legislation; organize food, clothing, and medical brigades to help Dominican families affected economically by the immigration crackdowns; and even shelter Dominican migrants in churches and community halls that have become safe havens.

A similar solidarity exists within the diaspora. In New York, where the playful rivalry between Puerto Ricans and Dominicans began in the 1970s — when Dominicans moved in large numbers to historically Boricua neighborhoods like the South Bronx, Washington Heights, and the Lower East Side — new forms of alliances emerged. The Young Lords, a Puerto Rican revolutionary group born out of Chicago that later expanded to New York, included many Dominican women and men who, together, fought for housing rights, education access, and community health programs that impacted both communities. At the same time, El Museo del Barrio in East Harlem served as one of a few hubs where Puerto Rican and Dominican youth collaborated on arts, education, and cultural projects.

Living side by side in housing projects throughout the city, both groups did what they, arguably, do better than anyone else: crack jokes. As my Puerto Rican dad who grew up in New York in the ‘70s tells me, no one was safe and everything was ripe for teasing: accents, who had slicker game with girls, and who had better rum. Over the years, those neighborhood quips carried on, with Puerto Rican men now laughing at how tight their Dominican friends wear their pants and Dominicans teasing their Puerto Rican brothers for dressing like they are in an early-2000s Peedi Crakk music video.

A comedic skit called “Puerto Ricans vs. Dominicans,” published by Flama in 2015, captures the playful beef perfectly. In the five-minute clip, two men go back and forth, hilariously debating which culture has better style, music, and food, only to have a mom in rolos intervene, revealing that the two are actually brothers, each both Puerto Rican and Dominican.

And that’s the other reality: In the diaspora, Puerto Rican and Dominican communities often intermingle, forming families that bond us even closer. Are you even Puerto Rican if you don’t have a Dominican tío? Are you even Dominican if you don’t have a prima who’s half-Bori and a few other distant relatives who have lived in Puerto Rico for decades? We are, quite literally, family. During Bad Bunny's second show in Santo Domingo this weekend, he brought out Romeo Santos, who is of both Dominican and Puerto Rican descent, to perform a bachata version of "BOKeTE." And so many of our favorite stars in music, film, TV, and social media share the same mix, too. Our identities are braided together like the knotted fibers of Taíno baskets, a shared ancestral practice I only just learned about during my recent visit to Centro Cultural Taíno Casa del Cordón in Santo Domingo.

A guy I used to date, who just so happens to be Dominican, used to always tell me, “Where there is a Puerto Rican, there is a Dominican nearby.” And he wasn’t wrong. From New York and New Jersey down through Worcester, Allentown, and Orlando, there are entirely blended neighborhoods. We coalesce because we know that, despite all the jokes and competition, we see and understand each other. Our food and music are seasoned with the same stuff. Our accents and slang may be different, but we understand each other’s dialects more easily than anyone else’s. We feel safe together. We feel at home. And like siblings who play-fight but will throw hands at anyone who really comes for their family, we tease each other relentlessly, and hilariously, con amor y respeto.   

And that’s why, when I threw my hands in the air and bounced euphorically at Bad Bunny’s show in DR this weekend, screaming, “Puerto Rico,” mi tierrita, “está bien cabrón,” there were tens of thousands of Dominicans around me leaping and yelling it, too — and meaning it. 

It’s also why I teared up when Benito ended that performance declaring, “la República Dominicana está cabrón también.” Because we are two cultures, two nations, and two islands that have fought conquest, injustice, and generations of marginalization in the Caribbean and in the States — y todavía estamos aquí, juntos, teasing each other, y bien cabrón.