Bad Bunny: How do you survive the detractors of trap and reggaeton?

“The artist Benito Rocancio Martínez, ‘bad bunny‘He’s a time traveler, he came from the future,” wrote an Anonymous fan account on Twitter, that group of activists that lives up to its name. Although it is not the official one, his more than 600,000 followers can make his message reach thousands more. And that some may even take it seriously, despite the pun or error in the name. They are, perhaps, the perks of the trade of being famous. The answers, of course, are the variety that one can expect in said social network, in which anonymity is not exclusive to the group of hackers or their supporters: “I know and I have a theory. In his videos, he gives signs such as a face mask, antibacterial gel, among other things, which he usually uses for some strange reason.”says one. “I support everything, but in this case, please let him go in due time”says another. “He came to bring noise pollution”, add someone else. In the cultural shock that means that people of different tastes, idiosyncrasies or origins express their opinions, there are many critics of reggaeton who consider that it is a macho, stupefying musical style and devoid of any artistic merit. That, of course, does not prevent Bad Bunny -one of the 64,325 children who came into the world in Puerto Rico in 1994- from being listened to by almost 62 million listeners a month on Spotify, adding 48.8 million followers on TikTok, having more than 43 million pending of him in Instagram –despite not following anyone and having only 14 publications, most of them close-ups of his face making faces- or that his latest video clip, “El apagón – aquí vive gente”, has had, in just one month, almost 10 million views on YouTube, where he has more than 44 million followers. Two years ago, “Dákiti” -together with Jhay Cortez- had surpassed 350 million views in just a month and a half.

Also two years ago, the parody portal Última noticia published: “Heroes: Anonymous hacks Bad Bunny’s computer and eliminates the album he was going to launch.” And he added: “”It is a great service to humanity, only at the level of finding a vaccine or an honest politician in Peru,” said a UN representative for our practitioners.” Neither of these ironies prevented Apple Music from naming him “Artist of the Year” this year or from his most recent release, the album “Un verano sin ti”, having a song like “Callaíta” that has been listened to more than billion times. To give you an idea, Thriller (Michael Jackson), the eponymous single from the best-selling album in history, has been reproduced “barely” 441 million times.

Bad Bunny is today in the top 10 of the most listened to on Spotify, with the plus that he is the only one who sings in Spanish. According to the specialized portal Chart Masters, Bad Bunny is the second most played artist of all time on said streaming platform, only behind Drake. The one born in Almirante Sur, Vega Baja, just 28 years ago, has over 47 billion views. Of course, many of his tracks – “Yonaguni”, “Safaera”, “Ojitos lindos”, “Me porto bonito”, “X última vez”, to mention just a few – are sung from memory beyond Latin American borders. Admiring someone without any specific talent for music – it is not a prejudice; he himself accepts it- is, without a doubt, an unmistakable symptom of our times.

I behave pretty

However, beyond the virtual figures offered by apps and social networks, Bad Bunny went out into the world to verify his success. Between February and April of this year, with his “The Last Tour of the World” tour, he sold out places like the Ball Arena in Denver, Colorado (with a capacity for 20,000 people); the Haskins Center in El Paso, Texas (11,800); the American Airlines Center in Dallas, Texas (20 thousand) –here he had two dates and the tickets, launched 10 months before, sold out in a few hours. The resale reached 18 thousand dollars, according to Dallasnews-; The Forum in Inglewood, Calif. (17,500); Moda Center in Portland, Oregon (19,900), Climate Pledge Arena in Seattle, Washington (17,400) or the Capital One Arena in Washington, DC (20,300), irrefutable proof that, in the very capital of the United States, Just 8 blocks from the White House, his combination of charisma, trap, bachata and reggaeton was already triumphing, becoming a pop phenomenon. It’s almost a metaphor for how he’s taken over the world. Where it is possible that Joe Biden’s daughters or granddaughters have danced it, there was no lack of media that brought out a list of recommended places “to continue perreando after the concert.” According to an article from the LATimes, several months before Bad Bunny stopped on any of the mentioned stages, he had already broken records: his was the best-selling tour on the Ticketmaster portal since 2018. “One thing is clear: the world wants to see Bad Bunny live on stage,” said Mark Yovich, president of the company – ticket sales giant based in the United States and operations in several countries in America and Europe – in a statement. According to the LATimes, Billboard was projecting the tour to gross between $63 million and $84 million. San José, Phoenix, Rosemont, New Jersey, Boston, Charlotte, Miami or Orlando are just some of the other cities that acclaimed him in the 25 dates he performed.

However, the “Bad Rabbit” wanted to go for more. Already in 2020 he had been at the Superbowl -at the Hard Rock Stadium in Miami- along with Shakira, J.Lo and J Balvin, one of the great milestones of his career. But what does he do when he’s not packing auditoriums or stadiums? Last year he conquered American viewers thanks to a highly commented interview on the Jimmy Fallon show, in which he talked about his acting debut in the Netflix series “Narcos: Mexico” and his participation as a wrestler in WWE. “I can say and it may sound daring, but what people want is joy, they were locked up for two years and people do not want anything other than positivism”he declared in another interview in October of the same year.

In April, Sony revealed that the singer will star in “El muerto”, a film based on a Marvel Comics character and that it will be released in 2024. In July of this year he arrived at Dodger Stadium alongside figures such as Bryan Cranston -Walter White /Heisenberg in Breaking Bad- to play a friendly game of softball. Just a few days later he released the action film “Bullet Train”, in which he appears alongside Brad Pitt. In August he also opened Gekkō, his first restaurant in Miami.

Of course, he took advantage of the hype for the film to start his “World’s Hottest Tour” that same month, which is the one that brings him to Lima this weekend, after having passed through cities like Orlando, Atlanta, Miami, Boston, Chicago , Washington DC, New York, Las Vegas or Los Angeles, as well as Santo Domingo, Santiago, Asunción or Buenos Aires. A total of 29 concerts. 15 in the United States and 14 in Latin America, again to full house. In the Dominican Republic he was almost two hours late, but he was still acclaimed; In the Chilean capital, and as a preamble to his own song, he let us listen to “Tren al Sur”, an emblematic song by the local band Los Prisioneros; In the Argentine capital he offered an unexpected tribute to the iconic Charly García, when halfway through the concert he let us hear the a cappella voice of the Argentine star singing “Demoliendo Hoteles”. He perhaps thought that if Coldplay could honor Cerati, he could do the same. Like the British, he closed his night with fireworks. After the National Stadium, Benito will be in Quito, Medellín, Bogotá, Panama or Mexico. Will he go further? “They invited me to make a video on the moon, but I’m not going there. A video there on Mars or the Moon… Let someone else do it!”, He said. Cheap philosophy and rubber shoes? Who knows.

i’m worse

“In 2016 I worked in a supermarket. Today, at 26, she breaks records in the music industry of the era of reproductions and networks. He emerged as a trap figure and is now a global pop idol. He doesn’t know how to play instruments. Neither read sheet music. But the world dances at his feet.”, the experienced journalist from El País Amanda Mars wrote about him, as a prelude to the interview that Bad Bunny gave him in January 2021. In addition to emphasizing that he does not give in to the lasciviousness or coarseness characteristic of the genres he interprets, he highlights that some letters vindicate women or criticize the corruption of Puerto Rico. Something is certain: in 2018 he released “Solo de mi”, a song against gender violence and appeared at an event with a polo shirt that said “They killed Alexa, not a man in a skirt”, in reference to the recent murder of a transgender woman. . Along with his compatriot Ricky Martin, he also opposed former Governor Ricardo Roselló, after leaking a chat of his that was homophobic, misogynistic, and revealed corruption. In addition to his activism, the social work he carried out at the end of 2017 is undeniable, helping the victims of Hurricane María that hit Puerto Rico and part of the Caribbean. On the other hand, concerned about the poverty of his country, he established the Good Bunny Foundation, which distributes toys to children in this situation.

In the El País note, the journalist gives him a flower: “He is a fine sensor of his time, he takes the reggaeton he has sucked on since he was a child, shakes it together with the sensibilities of his generation and obtains a new concoction. All with a staging reminiscent of the extravagance of the Lady Gaga of yesteryear or the provocative ambiguity of Prince”.

Although there are prominent interpreters who have been critical of the twenty-something who also goes by the name of Benito Martínez Ocasio –León Larregui, for example, said that what he was doing was “disposable garbage”; the pianist James Rhodes affirmed in networks that he did not understand his popularity and that in 200 or 300 years we would no longer hear him “and Beethoven yes”; Aleks Syntek said that “that cannot be called music”; Although without mentioning it directly, Nito Mestre assured that “reggaetón is more boring than sucking on a corn… without grains, of course”, there are others, like Rubén Blades, who have shown their sympathy for him. Of course: in others condescension abounds. Few will want to look bad with someone who is so successful today.

What else can we expect from someone who won Latin Album of the Year at the American Music Awards for one titled YHLQMDLG (Yo Hago Lo Que Me Da La Gana)? Perhaps the mixture of confession and act of faith that he made in his famous interview for El País: “I am not a musician. I consider a person who plays a musical instrument a musician, due to life’s tragedies I don’t play any, but I’m not going to leave the world without doing it”.