Bad Bunny’s ‘DtMF’ Japanese Version: Creator Explains Song

Bad Bunny‘s nostalgic plena track “DtMF” went to Number One on the Billboard Hot 100 this week but another version stirred up viral buzz on social media: a Japanese translation of the song. Content creator Amanda Nolan, who uses the handle amandumb online, uploaded a Japanese cover of the track on Monday — and it instantly found an audience. People across social media platforms relished in the translation, and how well the Spanish-language song sounded in Japanese. As of the publication of this article, Nolan’s video has garnered 2.8 million views.

“I could not believe it,” Nolan tells Rolling Stone of her latest viral moment. “This has been one of the most heartwarming responses,” she says. “The amount of support and all of the comments in both English, Spanish, and Japanese from so many different people around the world — it’s so cool.”

It’s not Nolan’s first experience with a viral video. As a Nashville-based content creator who has been uploading Japanese versions of popular songs online since 2019, Nolan’s covers of Chappell Roan’s “Good Luck, Babe!” and city pop staple “Stay with Me” have also received millions of views. But her version of Bad Bunny’s “DtMF” coincides with the cross cultural moment that the Puerto Rican star finds himself in following his historic, and unifying, Super Bowl halftime show.

Nolan was part of the 128 million viewers who tuned in to watch — and found herself instantly inspired by the show. “I really loved Bad Bunny’s performance and I really loved the song,” she says. “[‘DtMF’] is so beautiful. I’d heard it before, of course, it’s been everywhere and it was what they played when he won the [Album of the Year] Grammy. I thought ‘this is a song that I could translate.’”

It helped that “DtMF” was originally performed in Spanish, rather than English, like most of the songs Nolan tends to cover. “I love to do Spanish translations,” she says. Though she’s not fluent in Spanish, the language’s structure and similar vowels makes for an easier, more accurate translation into Japanese. “Doing a Japanese cover of an English song, it’s very hard. I have to condense the theme or completely reword and change it from the original thought to make it fit in the melody,” Nolan explains. The sing-songy romance language, however, leaves “a lot more wiggle room” which allowed her to “maintain and preserve as much as I could,” she says.

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For Nolan, it was particularly important that she keep the heartfelt message at the center of “DtMf” in tact. “I was just really blown away by the meaning of it … Bad Bunny talking about nostalgia and his culture, I feel like that’s something everyone can connect to,” she says. “I am half Japanese and half American, so global culture is really important to me, and to get to see the love from English, Spanish and a handful of Japanese speakers has been so nice,” Nolan adds. “They were like, ‘it makes me love the song more.’”

Linguistics aside, it’s no surprise Bad Bunny’s “DtMf” has resonated with audiences across the world. The song itself speaks to universal feelingd about loss, regret, and learning to live in the moment, while the Puerto Rican folk genre plena gives it the perfect melancholy melody. It’s just another way in which the proud Boricua continues to elevate his island on the international stage.

As Bad Bunny’s global reach continues to grow exponentially, he is especially popular to audiences in Asia. Back in 2022, the star even delivered a Japanese verse on “Yonaguni.” Before his Super Bowl performance, Benito went Number One on Apple Music in China. “There’s a lot of people that love me around the world, not even just the Latinos. You just said that I’m Number One in China, right?” Bad Bunny said at the Apple Music press conference for the Super Bowl halftime show. Just this week, he also announced his first-ever live performance in Asia with a one-off show in Tokyo as part of Spotify’s Billions Club Live series.

“They talked about him constantly on the news [in Japan] right after the Super Bowl,” says Nolan, who is currently in Tokyo, visiting family. While she makes clear that she’s no expert on Bad Bunny and his presence in the Japan, she’s not surprised by his growing popularity in the country. “Japan has always been open to the music that’s not in their own language,” she says. “Bad Bunny can easily slide in and be a pop favorite here.”

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