Bad Bunny
Mar 8, 2021
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Bad Bunny was born Benito Antonio Martinez Ocasio on March 10, 1994 in Puerto Rico. His moniker stems from an incident in grade school, where he was force to wear a bunny costume to school and was photographed with an angry expression on his face.
The Latin superstar said that from a young age, he wanted to be a singer. As a child he sang in the church choir.
When he was 22, he began releasing music on SoundCloud, while working at a supermarket during the day. Within a year, he had been signed to a recording contract and scored several Top 10 Latin hit singles. The song "Krippy Kush" (feat. Farruko) reached the Top 5 on Billboard's Hot Latin Songs chart. Numerous collaborations followed and, in the course of 2017, Bad Bunny had been featured on 15 songs that appeared on that chart.
In May 2018, the Cardi B single "I Like It" featuring Bad Bunny and J Balvin became a massive hit, reaching #1 at Pop, Rhythm and Latin radio and was nominated for a Grammy. Collaborations with Drake and Jennifer Lopez soon followed.
His debut album, X 100pre, was released at Christmas in 2018. The album made Rolling Stone's 500 Greatest Albums Of All Time at #447. An 8-song album with J Balvin was released unannounced in June 2019, reaching Top 10 of the Top 200 Album Chart. That year, he performed on the main stage at Coachella.
In 2020, he performed at the Super Bowl halftime show alongside Shakira and Jennifer Lopez.
His next album, YHLQMDLG, an acronym for "Yo Hago Lo Que Me Da La Gana" (Spanish for "I Do What I Want") was released in February 2020. The album debuted at #2 on the Top 200. It was followed in May with another surprise album release, Las Que No Iban A Salir - a compilation of previously unreleased or unfinished songs.
That month, he hosted a three hour Instagram Live session which, at one point, reached 320,000 viewers and also became the first Latin urban artist to appear on the cover of Rolling Stone.
His third studio album, El Ultimo Tour Del Mundo, arrived November 2020. The album includes the song "Dakiti," which hit #1 on the Top 200 and Top 5 on the Hot 100. He had been scheduled to perform on the American Music Awards that month, but had to cancel when he tested positive for Covid-19. He won two AMA's, Favorite Male Artist - Latin and Favorite Album - Latin, for YHLQMDLG.
He was the musical guest on Saturday Night Live in February 2021 and is nominated for a Grammy for Best Latin Pop or Urban album at this year's ceremony.