Bad Bunny - One Of The Most Streamed Artists Alive

In the six years since he quit his job bagging groceries, Benito Antonio Martínez Ocasio has become one of the most streamed artists alive, a professional wrestling champion, and a whole new kind of cliché-shattering sex symbol. Now, the Puerto Rican superstar is poised to make his next big jump: to Marvel leading man.

- Carina Chocano

Bad Bunny is in a good place. Fresh off a long-delayed 25-city tour for his third solo album, the most streamed artist of 2021 on Spotify is comfortably ensconced in a waterfront house in North Miami, just across Biscayne Bay from flashier Miami Beach, finishing his latest record. Built out of shipping containers arranged around a patio that looks onto a pool and a dock, this temporary residence is teeming with friends who are also collaboratorshis creative director, his photographer, his producer, his jack-of-all-trades. The sliding glass doors are open, but the breeze barely cuts through the humidity and the heat. A chef is at work in the open kitchen, filling the room with the aroma of pork and onions, and a spring break vibe hangs in the air. Someone has set a beautiful table for a crowd.

The mood is so mellow that you could almost forget that the person who shows up a few minutes after everyone else, fresh from the gym, is a global phenomenon whose genre-bending songs, convention-flouting lyrics, and gender-fluid looks have, over the past six years, changed the face of pop music. An urbano Latin trap singer who has defied every expectation about what a rapper and trap artist should look like, and what a reggaeton singer should sing about-upsetting some people but inspiring many more.

I think he's the biggest star in the whole world right now, Diplo, who appeared on Bad Bunny's 2018 debut album and will join him on his stadium tour this summer, tells me over the phone. Bigger than any English-speaking star, bigger than, of course, the biggest Latin star. He's the most massive, most progressive, most important pop star in the world. Bad Bunny's frequent collaborator J Balvin concurs. He's a creative genius, he says, someone who takes us out of the stereotypes and shows the real, new way that we see the world as Latinos.