Bad Bunny is a Puerto Rican Reggaeton and Latin Trap singer whose smooth raps, bright sense of fashion, bad boy persona and social consciousness is shifting the landscape of global Pop music ~ in Spanish.
- Bad Bunny World’s Hottest Tour of Latin Trap and Reggaeton is at Yankee Stadium in Concourse, The Bronx on Saturday-Sunday, August 27-28, 2022 at 7pm. From $185. mlb.com 🇵🇷
Bad Bunny is Puerto Rican, Puerto Rican
VEGA BAJA, PUERTO RICO ~ 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 one of the fathers of 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 may turn Bad Bunny into a good man.
Bad Bunny or Good Bunny?
Okay since when was 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, I can’t help but wonder if he doesn’t ever get tired of all those sexy, sexy bodies. In his mid-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 does have some awoke 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 off better 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.
Bad Bunny Music
Friday, June 28, 2019 ~ Bad Bunny and J Balvin dropped their duo album Oasis out of the blue.
Debut Album X100PRE
December 24, 2018 ~ 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 (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.
Mia
October 11, 2018 ~ Bad Bunny’s trick on “Mia” was to get Drake to sing a few words in clean Spanish on the song. It debuted at No. 5 on the Billboard Hot 100. The song then hit No. 1 on three Latin charts.
Bad Bunny is crossing over like crazy and he’s doing it in Spanish.
I Like It Like That
May 25, 2018 ~ 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.
We are not talking about topping Billboard’s Latin charts. We are talking about the Billboard Hot 100.
It’s notable that the first Hot 100 No. 1 Latin trap song was based on Latin Boogaloo, 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.
Soy Peor
December 8, 2016 ~ Bad Bunny’s third hit was his breakthrough. “I’m worse” is about how shitty you feel after a breakup. That’s quite a trap, but honestly, what artist doesn’t have some great sorrow burning a hole inside them?
The song peaked at No. 22 on Billboard’s Hot Latin Songs chart. Bad Bunny started touring.
Diles
August 25, 2016 ~ This song 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.
Previously in New York City
Bad Bunny brings his “El Ultimo Tour Del Mundo” of Latin Trap and Reggaeton to Barclays Center in Prospect Heights, Brooklyn on Sat-Sun, Mar 19-20 at 8pm (7pm doors). From $270/$200. 🇵🇷
Bad Bunny brings his “El Ultimo Tour Del Mundo” of Latin Trap and Reggaeton to Prudential Center in Newark, New Jersey on Fri, Mar 18 at 8pm (7pm doors). From $293. 🇵🇷
Friday, December 6, 2019 ~ Conejo malo plays Barclays Center in Prospect Heights, Brooklyn at 8pm. From $57
October 27, 2019 ~ Bunny brings his X100Pre Tour to Prudential Center in Newark, New Jersey at 8pm. From $66
Saturday, April 27, 2019 ~ Bunny brings his X100Pre Tour to Madison Square Garden in Chelsea, Manhattan at 8pm. From $158
Estamos bien.
