How Bad Bunny Did It

"A few years ago, I visited my childhood home and heard a surprising sound: the bright and bouncy music of the Puerto Rican rapper Bad Bunny. My parents are white Baby Boomers who speak no Spanish and have never shown a taste for hip-hop, but they'd somehow gotten into Benito Antonio Martínez Ocasio, whose sex-and-rum-drenched lyrics they couldn't begin to decipher."

"Since uploading his first single in 2016, he's broken U.S. sales records and claimed the title of the most streamed artist on Spotify in four separate years. His popularity, high standing with critics, and duration of success make him a peer-and sometimes a better-selling one-of such contemporary titans as Taylor Swift, Beyoncé, and Kendrick Lamar. Like them, he's figured out that 21st-century-pop success is achieved by assembling excitingly hybrid sounds around an iron core of identity."

Bad Bunny achieved unprecedented cross-language pop dominance through streaming platforms that exposed his Spanish-language music to broad audiences. Since his 2016 debut single he has broken U.S. sales records and been Spotify's most-streamed artist in multiple years. His commercial success, critical acclaim, and sustained popularity place him alongside major contemporary stars such as Taylor Swift, Beyoncé, and Kendrick Lamar. He attains success by fusing hybrid musical styles while maintaining a clear personal and cultural identity and performing almost entirely in Spanish. Streaming and internet distribution bypassed traditional gatekeepers, enabling non-English artists to reach mainstream markets domestically and abroad.

Read at The Atlantic