Bad Bunny’s cultural impact knows no limits.
Just days after making history for being the first Latino artist to win the Album of the Year Grammy, the Puerto Rican superstar will continue to strengthen his global status; he will perform at the Super Bowl LX Halftime Show at Levi’s Stadium in San Francisco, this Sunday (Feb.8.)
This comes after a historic 2025, with the Bad Bunny—who was born and raised in Vega Baja, Puerto Rico—not only smashing streaming records but doing it with his most political, introspective and ambitious and Puerto Rican album yet, with DeBÍ TiRAR MáS FOToS.
On the album, Bad Bunny, who’s real name is Benito Antonio Martínez Ocasio, connects Puerto Rico’s past and present while navigating through salsa, reggaeton, trap, dembow, bolero, and PR traditional rhythms like bomba and plena. As an ode to Puerto Rican culture, the album explores social issues like colonization. What makes DtMF so powerful is that it’s an album of celebration and resistance.
It’s hard to believe but Bad Bunny’s global dominance is still in motion. Despite his success, there will be many NFL fans tuning in who are not familiar with his music (which is fully in Spanish.) Before he hits the biggest global stage, here are 15 things you didn’t know about Bad Bunny.
Before becoming an artist, he worked as a bagger at a local supermarket.
While he worked on his songs independently— uploaded them to SoundCloud—Benito Antonio Martínez Ocasio, worked as a bagger at a local supermarket in Puerto Rico called Econo Plaza Vega Baja while studying audiovisual communication at the University of Puerto Rico in Arecibo.
In 2016, he released “Diles” and “Soy Peor” and his life started changing. Within a couple of months he was doing songs with reggaeton superstars like Arcángel and Ozuna.
Bad Bunny finished ‘DtMF’ the day before its release date.
In an interview with local podcaster Chente Ydrach, Bad Bunny revealed he finished his Grammy award-winning album the day before its release date.
He confessed that details for songs like “CAFé CON RON” were still being worked on days before being published on streaming platforms.
In an interview with Vogue, he talked more about this process, saying “All my albums I have finished the day before they come out. It’s something I’ve tried to try not to do, but it’s my way.”
A childhood photo inspired the name Bad Bunny.
In 2020, Bad Bunny appeared on the The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon with a childhood photo of him dressed as a bunny.
This was the photo that inspired his name. In a 2018 interview with ET, he spoke about the photo, saying:
"When I was a little boy in school, I had to dress up as a bunny, and there's a picture of me with an annoyed face. And when I saw it, I thought I should name myself,” Bad Bunny said. "It's a name I knew would market well. A bunny is something so common that I thought to myself, every time someone sees one, they'll remember my music."
Growing up, he loved a lot of different genres of music but had a particular affinity for the Bee Gees.
What makes Bad Bunny such a fascinating figure is how his music pays homage to all the genres and sounds he grew up with—from reggaeton and merengue to salsa and bachata.
However, there was one artist he formed a deep relationship with that fell outside that scope: the Bee Gees.
Speaking to Rolling Stone in 2020, he said:
“There was a time where I would only listen to the Bee Gees,” he admits. “Bee Gees, Bee Gees, Bee Gees. And West Coast rap classics.”
He played a part in a political movement that led to Puerto Rico’s former governor resigning.
In 2019, Bad Bunny joined rapper Residente and singer iLe to release the protest song “Afilando los Cuchillos” (“Sharpening the knives”), amid the massive demonstrations against then Puerto Rico governor Ricardo Rosselló in 2019.
The song is a brutal and furious take-down against the then-governor, who finally stepped down from office after several weeks of protests.
The demonstrations were in response to a leaked chat where Rosselló and members of his administration made homophobic, derogatory, and misogynistic slurs.
In the text message conversation, public officials also joked about dead bodies that were collected at a government facility after Hurricane María in 2017.
Bad Bunny even paused his European tour to join the protests in San Juan, along with other artists like Ricky Martin.
He’s a diehard pro wrestling fan.
Bad Bunny’s love for WWE and professional wrestling runs deep.
In 2017, the rapper released “Chambea”, a hard-hitting trap song that featured WWE legend Ric Flair in its music video. On his 2020 album, El Último Tour del Mundo, he pays homage to Booker T on a track named after the wrestling legend.
But his love for the sport didn't stop there. In 2021, he was the star of Wrestlemania 37 when he became entangled in a wrestling match between Damian Priest, The Miz and John Morrison.
Bad Bunny lived out his local TV dreams.
After he dropped his magnum opus, DtMF, Bad Bunny did what anyone superstar would do: he went to local TV.
On the morning of January 7, 2025, thousands of Puerto Ricans were shocked when they woke up, turned on their TV and saw Bad Bunny be an “anchorman” for the NotiCentro al Amanecer morning show on the WAPA TV channel.
For two hours, Bad Bunny delivered the news, presented segments, danced live, and talked about DtMF.
‘DtMF’ features music from young musicians from public music schools.
The release of DtMF also showed the world LoS SOBRiNOS (The Nephews), his backing band consisting of local young musicians.
In his interview with Ydrach, Bad Bunny revealed that, after discovering them through social media, he and his team recruited musicians “Big” Jay Anthony Nuñez and Julito Gastón to work on the salsa banger “BAILE INoLVIDABLE”.
Gastón, a young percussion virtuoso, brought more fellow young musicians from public music schools on the island to back Benito’s DtMF music.
Since then, the band has backed Bad Bunny in every live presentation from NPR's Tiny Desk to his Puerto Rico residency and now his DtMF World Tour.
Bad Bunny loves sports even though he’s bad at them.
From name-dropping baseball figures like Juan Soto to NBA superstars like LeBron James, sports have always been a central inspiration in Bad Bunny’s punchlines and rhymes.
And now he’s performing at the Super Bowl. And yet, he admits he’s terrible at sports.
During the Apple Music Super Bowl LX Halftime Show Press Conference this week, he talked about his lack of athletic ability.
"Well, I'm not good at sports. But I do love sports. I come from Puerto Rico and there's a huge sport culture there. Baseball, boxing, basketball, a lot of sport. Actually, we have a football player playing at the Super Bowl from Puerto Rico,” he said. "So yeah, I grew up watching sports [but] playing sports very bad."
Has taken the crown for most streamed artist of the year on Spotify four times since 2020.
Everyone knows that Bad Bunny is a streaming giant—but just how big he is may still be understated.
In 2025, Bad Bunny was the most-streamed artist on Spotify, with nearly 20 billion streams worldwide, beating out Taylor Swift, who came in at No. 2.
Since 2020, the title of Spotify’s most-streamed artist has belonged to either Bad Bunny or Taylor Swift.
Here’s how it breaks down:
2020: Bad Bunny
2021: Bad Bunny
2022: Bad Bunny
2023: Taylor Swift
2024: Taylor Swift
2025: Bad Bunny
He once did a surprise concert at a gas station.
Bad Bunny has always liked surprises.
Most of his albums have come as shock releases. But for him and his team, it doesn’t stop there. On December 27, 2022, the rapper made a surprise performance in Puerto Rico. The location? The roof of a Gulf gas station in the middle of Calle Loíza, a San Juan neighborhood.
Thousands of Puerto Ricans flooded the streets for the performance that also featured long-time collaborator Arcángel. Both rappers used the performance to record the video for their song “La Jumpa.”
Bad Bunny is sober when writing and recording.
When talking with Ydrach, Bad Bunny revealed that he prefers to write his songs sober.
“I do everything sober. I drink a little, but after I finish the work. I prefer to have a clear mind,” the artist said.
Bad Bunny was the Co-Chair of the Met Gala in 2024.
Early in his music career, Bad Bunny was known for rocking unconventional and bright outfits—does everyone remember the Gucci floral suit he wore at the Latin American Music Awards in 2017?
By 2020, his style had evolved into a sleeker, more refined look. Since 2022, he has appeared at the prestigious Met Gala, turning heads with a mix of swagger and elegance.
In 2024, he even cochaired the event, wearing Maison Margiela, an ensemble featuring a black beret, dark diamond-shaped sunglasses, and black leather gloves.
There are now college courses about his cultural impact.
In 2022, as Bad Bunny’s cultural significance continued to grow, colleges and universities in the US started developing courses to study the artist’s impact.
First, came Wellesley College Professor Petra Rivera-Rideau’s Bad Bunny course called “Bad Bunny: Race, Gender, and Empire in Reggaetón.” In 2023, Loyola Marymount University Professor Vanessa Díaz began teaching the course “Bad Bunny and Resistance in Puerto Rico.”
And then last year, after the release of DtMF, Bad Bunny’s cultural and social impact was being analyzed and studied at Yale University in the course “Bad Bunny: Musical Aesthetics and Politics,” which is taught by Professor Albert Laguna.
He co-wrote and co-produced a Latin pop album.
In 2021, Bad Bunny turned heads once again when he teamed up with Puerto Rican singer, songwriter, and balladeer Tommy Torres to co-produce and co-write his album, El Playlist de Anoche (Last Night’s Playlist). Torres, who has written songs for artists like Ricky Martin, lauded the production and songwriting process with Bad Bunny. He even considered that the rapper pushed him outside of his comfort zone and expanded his musical horizons.