From Puerto Rico With Love

Bad Bunny’s Latin-trap hits have 7 billion views, but he hasn’t forgotten where he came from.

Bad Bunny has 7 billion views for his unorthodox trap hits, but he hasn’t forgotten where he came from

Bad bunny knows how to make an entrance. When he shows up at the Palms Casino in Las Vegas for Rolling Stone’s Latin Grammys preparty in November, he’s wearing rainbow-flecked board shorts, flip-flops and limegreen shades. The Puerto Rican star, 24, proceeds to steal the dance floor with his raver moves. The next night, he steals the whole awards show with the nu-metal fury of “Soy Peor” and the electropsych bliss of “Estamos Bien.”

It’s just another week for one of the hottest acts in Latin pop, whose music scored 7 billion YouTube views last year, and who flew from Vegas to Miami two days before the awards to perform his hit Drake duet “Mia” at an arena. (He says he’s been helping the Canadian rapper practice his Spanish: “He knows enough to get by.”)

Born Benito Antonio Martínez Ocasio in San Juan, Bad Bunny grew up listening to classic salseros like Héctor Lavoe and singing in a local church choir. As a teen, he skateboarded with friends and listened to Arcade Fire and Linkin Park. That unusual stylistic mix has helped him open the door for a new kind of Latin pop, full of emotional twists and turns. (See the hit “Te Boté” remix, where he steers from a broken heart into a punchline: “Our love drove a Bugatti, and you chose to stay on foot.”)

Bad Bunny spent the latter half of 2018 racing to finish his first proper solo LP. He also made his first-ever U.S. TV appearance, on The Tonight Show, where he offered a sobering plea for help on behalf of Puerto Rico a year after Hurricane Maria. “More than 3,000 people died,” he said, “and Trump’s still in denial.”

His own parents went without power for months after the storm. “Praise God, they’re fine now,” he tells me. “But many people still don’t have basic necessities. If I have a voice, I should use it for my people.”

SUZY EXPOSITO