Bad Bunny and the Global Puerto Rican Moment
By Roberto Maldonado | October 2024 | 14 min read
In 2022, Bad Bunny became the most-streamed artist on Spotify—not the most-streamed Latin artist, or Spanish-language artist, but the most-streamed artist, period, in the world. His album Un Verano Sin Ti topped the Billboard 200 for multiple weeks, earned a Grammy nomination for Album of the Year, and became the soundtrack of a summer that stretched from San Juan to Tokyo.
This was unprecedented. A Puerto Rican artist, singing almost entirely in Spanish, with lyrics full of island references that required cultural translation, had conquered the global music industry without compromise. How did it happen? And what does it mean?
The Boy from Vega Baja
Benito Antonio Martínez Ocasio was born in 1994 in Vega Baja, a small city on Puerto Rico’s north coast. He grew up listening to his mother’s reggaeton and his father’s salsa, skateboarding through the streets, and developing the distinctive nasal voice that producers would initially tell him to change.
The early career followed a familiar pattern: SoundCloud uploads, local buzz, viral moments on social media. His breakthrough track “Diles” (2016) demonstrated the formula that would make him famous: trap-influenced reggaeton with melodic hooks, lyrics that balanced braggadocio with vulnerability, and an aesthetic that mixed streetwear with gender-fluid fashion choices.
By 2018, Bad Bunny had become the biggest reggaeton artist of his generation. But he was just getting started.
Breaking the Rules
What distinguishes Bad Bunny from his predecessors—Daddy Yankee, Don Omar, Wisin & Yandel—is his willingness to break reggaeton’s unwritten rules.
Gender presentation: Bad Bunny wears nail polish, skirts, dresses. He has kissed male dancers on stage. In a genre historically defined by hypermasculinity, this was revolutionary. Young fans—particularly queer fans—saw themselves represented in mainstream Latin music for the first time.
Sonic experimentation: While never abandoning reggaeton’s dembow foundation, Bad Bunny incorporates rock, indie, EDM, traditional Puerto Rican music, and whatever else catches his attention. Un Verano Sin Ti alone spans trap, Dominican dembow, ’90s house, and something that sounds like tropical shoegaze.
Political engagement: Bad Bunny has used his platform to address Puerto Rican politics, including the massive protests that forced Governor Ricardo Rosselló’s resignation in 2019. He has spoken about colonialism, the debt crisis, and the government’s response to Hurricane María. This politics is woven into his music, not separate from it.
Language refusal: Despite pressure from American labels, Bad Bunny has refused to make an English-language album. He understands that his Spanish is part of his appeal—that listeners worldwide are drawn to the sound and emotion of his music even when they don’t understand every word.
Un Verano Sin Ti
The 2022 album represents Bad Bunny’s artistic peak—a 23-track journey through Puerto Rican summer that somehow appeals to both island audiences and global listeners who’ve never been to the Caribbean.
The title translates to “A Summer Without You,” and the album is suffused with longing—for lost love, for island life, for a Puerto Rico that exists more in memory than reality. Tracks like “Me Porto Bonito” and “Tití Me Preguntó” became ubiquitous, their hooks inescapable from beach clubs to wedding receptions.
But the album’s heart is its quieter moments: “El Apagón,” which directly addresses the privatization of Puerto Rico’s electrical grid; “Andrea,” a tender acoustic track about young love; “Un Coco,” which samples traditional plena music. These songs aren’t compromises—they’re essential to the album’s emotional architecture.
Un Verano Sin Ti proved that a Latin album could compete at the highest levels of the global music industry without diluting its cultural specificity. The world came to Puerto Rico, not the other way around.
The Industry Transformation
Bad Bunny’s success has transformed the music industry in ways that extend beyond his personal achievements.
Latin music’s market share: Spanish-language music now accounts for a significant portion of American streaming. Labels that once viewed Latin artists as niche acts now compete aggressively for signing them.
Puerto Rican infrastructure: The island has become a music industry hub. Studios, labels, management companies, and production teams have proliferated in San Juan, creating an ecosystem that supports dozens of artists.
Artist model: Bad Bunny has demonstrated that Latin artists don’t need to crossover to English to achieve global success. Artists like Rosalía, J Balvin, and Karol G have followed this path, maintaining their linguistic and cultural identities while building international audiences.
Fashion and aesthetics: Bad Bunny’s visual style—bold, playful, gender-nonconforming—has influenced fashion well beyond the music world. His Adidas collaborations sell out instantly. His looks are dissected in Vogue and GQ.
Puerto Rican Identity
What does it mean that the world’s most popular musician is making music so specifically Puerto Rican?
For island residents, there’s pride mixed with ambivalence. Bad Bunny represents Puerto Rico to the world, but his representation is particular—Vega Baja working-class culture, reggaeton’s streets-and-clubs aesthetic, the specific experience of young Puerto Rican men. Other Puerto Ricos exist and remain less visible.
For the diaspora, Bad Bunny offers connection. His music is the sound of family gatherings, of summer visits to the island, of cultural memory transmitted through rhythm and slang. Even diaspora kids who grew up speaking English first feel Puerto Rican when a Bad Bunny track comes on.
For global audiences, Bad Bunny is an entry point—not just to reggaeton but to Puerto Rican culture more broadly. Listeners who start with “Tití Me Preguntó” may end up exploring salsa, bomba, the island’s literature and visual art. Or they may not. Either way, Puerto Rico now occupies space in global consciousness that it didn’t before.
What Comes Next?
Bad Bunny has hinted at eventual retirement—or at least a step back from the relentless pace of touring and recording. When that happens, the industry he helped build will continue without him.
The question is whether the space he opened will remain open. Will labels continue investing in Spanish-language artists? Will global audiences sustain their interest in Puerto Rican culture? Or will the “Latin moment” prove to be exactly that—a moment that passes, leaving the industry to return to its English-language defaults?
The optimistic view is that Bad Bunny has changed things permanently. He’s proven that there’s a global audience for Latin music, that quality and authenticity trump linguistic accessibility, that an artist from a Caribbean island of 3.2 million people can become the biggest star in the world.
The pessimistic view is that the music industry loves nothing more than declaring moments over. Latin music has risen before—the “Latin explosion” of the late 1990s—only to be pushed back to the margins. It could happen again.
What’s certain is that Bad Bunny has given Puerto Rico a cultural moment unprecedented in its history. What the island and its artists do with that moment remains to be written.
Roberto Maldonado is a music journalist based in San Juan. He has covered reggaeton and Latin urban music for over fifteen years.