Arcángel Said Spain Gave Latin America ‘Everything’ But He Needs to Be Reminded About the Taíno People He Descended From

The debate over Spain’s colonial history and whether it owes Latin America an apology has been running at an unusually high temperature in recent weeks. Madrid’s regional president Isabel Díaz Ayuso traveled to Mexico, defended the legacy of Hernán Cortés, called Mexican president Claudia Sheinbaum a far-left dictator and was ultimately denied entry to the Premios Platino ceremony to prevent the event from becoming a political platform. That was the backdrop against which reggaeton artist Arcángel walked onto the stage of the Movistar Arena in Madrid this past Monday and decided to weigh in himself, loudly and without reservation.

Austin Agustín Santos, the Puerto Rican-American artist known professionally as Arcángel, was performing as part of his La 8va Maravilla World Tour 20 Aniversario when he delivered an extended defense of Spain’s role in Latin American history that sent the crowd into repeated eruptions of applause and quickly spread across social media after a video shared by TikTok user @deejaythiagooo began circulating widely.

@deejaythiagooo

Arcangel da una lección de historia en el #movistararena #arcangel #hispanoamericanos #madrid #fyp

♬ sonido original – DeejayThiagooo

A Reframing of Identity That Stopped the Room

Arcángel opened his remarks with a provocation that reframed the very language his audience uses to describe themselves. “I know you say Latinos, but for me we are not Latinos, we are Hispanic Americans,” he told the crowd. “The real Latinos are the Spanish, the French and the Portuguese.”

He did not stop there. The artist, who was raised in the Villa Palmeras neighborhood of Santurce in Puerto Rico, went on to express pride in what he described as the civilizing influence of Spanish colonization, arguing that the arrival of Spain gave indigenous populations language, faith and cultural foundation. “Proud of all my beliefs, proud of the language I carry, proud of the mother country that was and gave us light,” he said. “Because we were Indians. These people came and made us speak and made us believe and made us matter.”

No Apologies, No Regrets

The sharpest applause came when Arcángel turned his attention directly to the argument that Spain owes Latin America a formal apology, a position that has been advanced by several Latin American governments and that King Felipe VI has engaged with in recent years. Arcángel rejected it entirely and did so with the kind of language that leaves no room for interpretation.

“The guys who go around saying Spain owes America an apology. Are you serious with that stupidity? What world do you live in?” he said to the roaring approval of the audience. He continued by pushing back on the narrative that Spain extracted wealth from the Americas without contributing anything in return. “Oh, they stole the gold, this and that. And the streets, and the schools, and the churches they built so that you could be educated today? Where did that come from?” he asked.

Arcángel closed that portion of his set with an unambiguous declaration of affection for the country he was performing in. “I am proud, I adore my mother country, Spain,” he said, before asking the crowd for noise and receiving exactly that. He also used the moment to celebrate the Spanish language itself, describing it as something he would not trade for any other. “I love my language. I cannot imagine speaking Italian, French or Chinese. All of that sounds ugly. I like what I speak,” he said, drawing another wave of approval from the crowd.

Arcángel and His Questionable Choices

The remarks landed with force in part because Arcángel is not a marginal figure in Latin music. His 20th anniversary tour reflects a career with genuine staying power in reggaeton and urban Latin music, and his willingness to take a position on one of the most contested cultural and historical debates in the Spanish-speaking world gave his words a reach that extended well past the arena in Madrid.

Arcángel is no stranger to controversy. In 2019 he was arrested in Las Vegas on charges of assaulting his alleged partner outside a venue as he was reportedly attempting to attend the Latin Billboard Awards despite not being invited, according to reporting by the Los Angeles Times and TMZ. In 2021 he drew widespread criticism after posting a message on Instagram that many readers described as misogynistic. “You want to be respected as a woman, but you spend your time showing your behind on social media for likes. Women who behave themselves are distinguished and categorized as ladies,” he wrote at the time.

What the History Actually Says

What Arcángel expressed on that Madrid stage reflects a perspective that has deep roots in certain parts of Latin American and Caribbean culture, the idea that Spanish colonization was a gift rather than a rupture. But that reading of history leaves out something essential. The indigenous communities that existed across the Americas before European contact were not waiting to be civilized. They had sophisticated languages, complex systems of governance, advanced agricultural knowledge, rich oral and written traditions and cultural frameworks that had been developed over thousands of years.

For Arcángel specifically, as a Puerto Rican, the history closest to home is the history of the Taíno people, the indigenous population that inhabited the island the Spanish renamed Puerto Rico long before any European ship appeared on the horizon. The Taíno had their own language, their own spiritual system, their own architecture, their own agricultural practices and their own name for the island they lived on. Within decades of Spanish arrival, the Taíno population had been devastated by violence, forced labor and disease introduced by the colonizers. A people who had built an entire civilization on that island were reduced to near extinction in the span of a generation.

The Aztec empire, which Hernán Cortés dismantled through military force and deliberate alliance-building with rival groups, operated one of the most organized urban civilizations of its time. Colonization did not bring light to people living in darkness. It arrived at the cost of languages that were erased, traditions that were outlawed, populations that were decimated and entire ways of understanding the world that were destroyed before anyone thought to record them.

Expressing pride in the Spanish language and in the cultural ties that connect millions of people across continents is entirely reasonable and something many Latin Americans share genuinely. Framing colonialism as the origin of Latin American worth, however, is a version of history that erases the people who were already here, including the Taíno ancestors of the island that made Arcángel who he is.