Bad Bunny

Bad Bunny is the Puerto Rican rapper and singer who carried Spanish-language music to the very top of the global mainstream without ever switching languages to do it. Born Benito Antonio Martínez Ocasio on March 10, 1994, in Bayamón and raised in the town of Vega Baja, he rose from uploading songs to SoundCloud to becoming the most-streamed artist in the world. Often called the King of Latin Trap, he blends reggaeton, trap, rock, salsa and traditional Puerto Rican rhythms into a style known as música urbana, and in 2026 his album Debí Tirar Más Fotos became the first Spanish-language record to win the Grammy for Album of the Year.

From SoundCloud to stardom

Benito grew up in a working-class household, the son of a truck driver and a schoolteacher, and sang in the church choir until he was thirteen. He chose the name Bad Bunny after an old photo of himself as a child in a bunny costume, wearing a grumpy expression. He began posting tracks like “Diles” and “Soy Peor” to SoundCloud around 2016, and his deep voice, slurry melodies and raw, anti-gloss energy set him apart from the polished reggaeton stars of the day. He signed with Rimas Entertainment, and a run of collaborations brought him to a wider audience, including the Cardi B and J Balvin hit “I Like It,” which reached number one on the Billboard Hot 100 in 2018.

A string of landmark albums

His debut album, X 100pre, arrived on Christmas Eve 2018 and won the Latin Grammy for Best Urban Music Album. In 2020 he released two records in one year: YHLQMDLG, which won a Grammy and featured the boundary-pushing “Yo Perreo Sola,” and El Último Tour Del Mundo, the first all-Spanish-language album to debut at number one on the Billboard 200. Then came Un Verano Sin Ti in 2022, a sprawling summer record drawing on reggaeton, bomba, bachata and beyond. It spent thirteen weeks atop the Billboard 200, became the first Latin album to reach 10 billion streams on Spotify, and made history as the first Spanish-language album nominated for the Grammy Album of the Year.

A voice for Puerto Rico

Bad Bunny has never separated his music from where he comes from. After Nadie Sabe Lo Que Va a Pasar Mañana in 2023, he released Debí Tirar Más Fotos in 2025, a record steeped in Puerto Rican history and identity that addresses the island’s political struggles while celebrating its culture. The album won the Grammy for Album of the Year in 2026, the first Spanish-language release ever to do so, and later that year he became the first artist to headline a Super Bowl halftime show performed primarily in Spanish. He has used his platform to speak on Puerto Rican issues, immigration and gender, often challenging conventions within reggaeton itself.

Beyond the charts

His reach extends well past streaming numbers. He has appeared in the WWE, acted in films and television, and turned his World’s Hottest Tour into the highest-grossing tour ever staged by a Latino artist. As a collaborator he has worked with Drake, Cardi B, J Balvin, Rosalía and many others, and for several years running he was Spotify’s most-streamed artist on the planet. What makes his story remarkable is how completely he did it on his own terms, in his own language, reshaping what global pop stardom can look like.

A genre with no borders

Part of what makes Bad Bunny distinctive is how freely he moves between styles. A single album can run from hard reggaeton to dreamy indie pop, from trap heartbreak to the bomba and plena rhythms rooted in Puerto Rican tradition. He has cited influences ranging from the salsa great Héctor Lavoe and El Gran Combo to reggaeton pioneers like Daddy Yankee and Vico C, and he folds all of it into a sound that still feels unmistakably his own. Critics have praised the way he writes songs that ordinary listeners identify with, no matter how large his fame grows.

Reshaping the mainstream

His success has had effects far beyond his own catalogue. By topping the all-genre Billboard charts and headlining the biggest festivals while singing almost entirely in Spanish, he helped prove that Latin artists no longer needed an English-language crossover to reach a global audience. That shift opened doors for a whole generation of urbano performers, and it placed Puerto Rico, with its long line of musical innovators, back at the center of pop. For Bad Bunny, staying true to his roots was never a limitation; it became the whole point.

The biggest name in Latin music

For several years Bad Bunny was simply the most-streamed artist on the planet, a feat no Latin performer had managed before. His albums consistently topped the all-genre charts, his tours sold out stadiums across the Americas and Europe, and his cultural footprint stretched into fashion, wrestling and film. Yet through every record he kept his distinctive voice and outlook intact, which is exactly why fans across continents feel such a close connection to a Puerto Rican artist singing in Spanish about life on his island.

Most loved songs

A spread across his catalogue. Each title opens through the in-site player.

From SoundCloud tracks to the Super Bowl stage, Bad Bunny changed the rules of global pop. If one of his songs is stuck in your head, type it into the search box above to find it.