Bad Bunny is a Grammy-winning Puerto Rican reggaeton and Latin trap singer whose smooth raps, bright fashion sense, and combination of bad boy persona with social consciousness changed the landscape of global pop music ~ in Spanish.
Many people, including many Puerto Ricans, don’t like the misogyny, thug life, and gender fluidity in some of Bad Bunny’s work. But every generation thinks young people are troubled. People said the same things about Frank Sinatra, back in the day. We get it, but Conejo Malo is a great artist, and on the whole, we think he is pretty well balanced. In just a few years, he went from bagging groceries in Arecibo, Puerto Rico to the world’s biggest pop star. That’s quite a trip.
In the 1960s and 70s, Celia Cruz popularized Latin music around the world. Bad Bunny did it again in the last decade. Many artists made reggaeton the sound of global youth, but Bad Bunny climbed to the top of the heap with his artistry. He is the Big Bunny.
Bad Bunny in New York City
Puerto Rican Reggaeton Pop
Bad Bunny “Most Wanted Tour” brings Puerto Rican reggaeton pop to Barclays Center in Prospect Heights, Brooklyn; on Thursday-Sunday, April 11-13, 2024 at 8pm. From $357. barclayscenter.com 🇵🇷
New York Venues
Bad Bunny is Puerto Rican, Puerto Rican
Benito Antonio Martínez Ocasio was born on March 10, 1994 in barrio Almirante Sur in Vega Baja, a small town right in the middle of Puerto Rico’s north coast.
Benito has said that his music comes from his family and his Puerto Rican culture. He got salsa and merengue from his dad, pop music from his mom, and tied it all together with hip hop.
He got a Vico C album one Christmas and inspired by that, he just started making music. Vico C is they artist who brought reggaeton from Brooklyn to San Juan, before it was even called reggaeton.
Benito studied some audiovisual arts at the University of Puerto Rico. While working as a supermarket bagger, his Soundcloud was blessed with over 1 million plays of “Diles.” That got Benito signed to Dj Luían’s strong Puerto Rican label Hear This Music.
The model for artist development in the reggaeton and Latin trap world’s is singing on each other’s recordings. In this way, established stars nurture and build audience for younger stars. It’s a clever adaptation. If the traditional paths are not open to you, you find another way. This way of singing together mirrors the sacred family which is the essence of Latin culture.
Bunny’s fashion sense is funky, sporty, glam, young Puerto Rican. It’s the nature of youth to turn something terribly bad into something terribly good. If he can hold onto it, that ability turns Bad Bunny into a good man.
Bad Bunny or Good Bunny?
Okay since when was youth music not about bad boy or bad girl personas? If you don’t speak Spanish, you have no idea how nasty some of these songs are. Watching his videos, one can’t help but wonder if he doesn’t ever get tired of all those sexy, sexy bodies. In his twenties, maybe not, but then the image might just be a show by a good Puerto Rican boy. Made you look. Gotcha. Ka-ching!!!
Bad Bunny has a lot of smarts in him. His point of view is that he’s got nothing to lose by just being himself.
He is against the blanket incarceration that so destroys Latin and Black communities across our country. Instead of putting young people of color in crime school and closing all paths to a normal life, we could surely find something better for them to do.
He is also speaking out about violence against women and homophobia. Sometimes his videos completely flip the meaning of what you heard in the song. He keeps you guessing and makes you think. That’s smart and the mark of an artist.
It will be interesting to watch Bad Bunny develop. He has that Puerto Rican sense of humor that can make you wish you could just stop laughing, or can make you cry about how stupid you’ve been without seeing it.
Never met him, but Benito sounds really grounded. He might be the one who softens the drug-fueled, oversexed, 20-year old fantasies of Latin trap into something the whole world rocks to, and is better off for it.
If you want to know what his songs are saying, you’ll just have to learn to speak Spanish. It’s not so difficult and Spanish has an inherent natural poetry that will enrich your life.
As I get older, I notice more and more that I have a different point of view from today’s youth. But I am also beginning to realize that young people’s point of view is equally valid and probably more important than mine.
Albums and Important Songs
“Nadie Sabe Lo Que Va a Pasar Mañana” (2023)
“Un Verano Sin Ti” (2022) has Benito missing someone. It was nominated for the “Album of the Year” Grammy. The song “Moscow Mule” was nominated for the “Best Pop Solo Performance” Grammy. Moscow Mule is a popular vodka drink in San Juan, Puerto Rico.
“El Último Tour Del Mundo” (2020) won the Grammy for “Best Música Urbana Album.”
“YHLQMDLG” (2020) won the Grammy for “Best Latin Pop or Urban Album.” The song “Un Dia (One Day)” was nominated for the “Best Pop Duo/Group Performance” Grammy.
“Oasis” with J Balvin (2019) was nominated for the “Best Latin Rock Rock, Urban or Alternative Album” Grammy.
“I Like It” by Cardi B, featuring Bad Bunny and J Balvin, was nominated for the 2019 “Record of the Year” Grammy. Cardi B’s hit based on the Pete “Conde” Rodriguez song “I Like it Like That” (1967), with Bad Bunny and J Balvin was Bad Bunny’s first No. 1 song. It blends Latin trap and salsa beats. It’s notable that the first Hot 100 No. 1 Latin trap song was based on Latin Soul, a late 1960s blend of African-American R&B and Latin sounds that was sung in English or in Spanish. The great Colombian writer Gabriel García Márquez was right in his central theme that history repeats itself.
“X 100pre” (2018) was nominated for the “Best Latin Rock, Urban or Alternative Album.” Right after changing labels to Rimas Entertainment, Bad Bunny released his debut album out of the blue with no fanfare. All I want for Christmas mom is a Bad Bunny record. The album’s title is pronounced Por Siempre (“por cien pre” Forever), get it? He’s probably hoping that his hot run will last forever. We hope it does too. Just two years out of a supermarket job, he has already dropped 34 tracks onto Billboard’s Hot Latin Songs chart. The singer developed the record back home in Vega Baja with his old friend La Paciencia and Tainy who also produced “I Like It.” We will probably be hearing a lot of the Dominican dembow “La Romana” featuring El Alfa this summer.
“Diles” (2016) put Ozuna, Farruko, Arcangel and Ñengo Flow on the record and made a video that pushed over 485 million views by April 2019. The song is about doing whatever you want sexually. That’s fun, but then what? Once you’ve done everything you can imagine, how do you top that? Pursued endlessly, sexual passion becomes a trap. There is a cultural basis for this. Latin culture, including Puerto Rican culture, tends to be very machista (male chauvinist). In machista culture, a woman is property and you can do whatever you want to her. That is what this song is about.
Estamos bien.