It’s midday in Miami. Bad Bunny stands atop a column on the seaside terrace of a Coconut Grove mansion. He is decked out in a Versace Barocco-print toga, gold chains and a crown of golden laurels. Stone-faced, he is instructed to channel a marble statue of Narcissus. Ocean waves slap the nearby shore, camera shutters snap and “Passionfruit” by Drake blares in the background.
As his crew and longtime photographer STILLZ huddle and trade suggestions, Bad Bunny looks skyward with a weary expression, a minor god silently questioning his creator, “Why me?”
After some more shots and poses, Bad Bunny hops down from the pedestal. He hurries to his stylist, face scrunched in a frown. “Can you take this crown off?” he says in Spanish. “It stings, puñeta!”
Not long after, we sit down to talk. Bad Bunny’s deity-like stoicism has fully dissolved, replaced by a laid-back demeanor—but his nails are another story. Along with a well-worn WWE T-shirt and his Playboy chains, the Latin trap megastar sports some serious press-ons left over from his photo shoot, black and gold marvels the call sheet refers to only as “Versace nails.” He clacks them on the counter, admiring the faux jewels and minute details. “I can take them off, but they’re pretty strong,” he says.
Bad Bunny, birth name Benito Antonio Martínez Ocasio, is exhausted but riding high on adrenaline. The day before our interview, he released his second album, YHLQMDLG, short for Yo Hago Lo Que Me Da La Gana—“I Do Whatever I Want.” That the record is a 20-song barrage reveals its ethos; loyalists will remember his cryptic February 24 tweet about 19 palos and a thank-you, but for him it was about much more than recording a sizable collection of songs simply because he can.
Baritone voice humming warmer than it does on the radio, he tells me it’s about insisting on doing what makes you feel good. “Dancing, enjoying, get it?” he says. “Right now, I am in a position where I feel so free. This is the album I wanted to make, and I made it.”
Bad Bunny’s 2018 debut X100PRE (a stylized abbreviation of the Spanish word for “forever”) was a proclamation of stand-alone deftness. The audacious debut, which weaved surrealist key changes, sensitive lyrics and dream-pop and rock sounds into a reggaeton record, branded him as a fearless iconoclast of Latin hip-hop. For YHLQMDLG, the sonic renegade synthesized his psychedelic vision of what a reggaeton record could be with the mainstream. An unabashed party starter, his sophomore release is also a cross-generation summit of the past, present and future of reggaeton. The album boasts a parade of supporting talent, ranging from OGs Jowell & Randy and Ñengo Flow to Boricua cult figure MC Yaviah—coaxed out of a long absence to go toe-to-toe with Bad Bunny on standout track “Bichiyal”—as well as newer faces such as Panamanian singer Sech and Puerto Rican rapper Myke Towers.
“The title may sound arrogant for some people, but it’s about not leaving things for later, not listening to people who tell you you’re wrong,” he says. If Bad Bunny can do whatever he wants today, it’s because a young Benito listened to his heroes with abandon back in his childhood bedroom and took copious notes. Rather than listen to the standard chorus of haters in the comments, Bad Bunny carries himself as if fulfilling a divine mission. To casual listeners and reggaeton purists alike, his appeal can be transcendent.
Bad Bunny’s signature third eye—frequently painted on his forehead and often incorporated into his imagery—symbolizes this drive. A sense of mysticism and divinity imbues his personal brand; in fact, he named his first set of tours La Nueva Religion, the New Religion. Even the dates on which he’s dropped music seem steeped in ritual and ceremony, from YHLQMDLG being dropped on Leap Day to the Christmas Eve release of his debut.
Coupled with his natural talent, this ambitious and vaguely spiritual approach has paid off: YHLQMDLG debuted at number two on the U.S. Billboard charts, the highest-charting Spanish-language album ever. Not one to remain static, global pandemic be damned, less than three months after this achievement Bad Bunny put out an unannounced compilation album aptly called Las Que No Iban a Salir (“The Ones That Were Not Coming Out”) on Mother’s Day. The record is a collage of original tracks made in quarantine and unreleased demos from the YHLQMDLG sessions. Its piecemeal nature showcases the artistic risks he so willingly takes, smoothly weaving radio-news samples with a mixed bag of appearances that include Latin mainstay Nicky Jam and jewelry designer girlfriend Gabriela Berlingeri, who lends her voice to the lead single “En Casita.”
Missing from the release is the third eye, which not only takes center stage on X100PRE’s cover but also appears on the album art for YHLQMDLG across the brow of a boy riding his bike full speed ahead. The boy is racing toward uncertainty, chaos behind him, all three of his eyes focused forward on the future. Bad Bunny is careful to blur the line regarding his identity. “It could be any boy from Latin America or the United States,” Bad Bunny tells me. “He has powers because he thinks differently and has a vision of the future beyond what others see. The people around him bully him, but he’s more powerful than all those who think he’s crazy, because he has that vision.”
A boy pushing forward with a vision: That’s not too far removed from Bad Bunny’s own origin story. A homebody choirboy who became a clandestine teenage beat-maker while bagging groceries and taking audio-visual communications courses at the University of Puerto Rico at Arecibo, his inherent shyness is reflected in the softness that exudes from even his hardest bars. “When I was locked in my room making music, I had a plan,” he reminisces about his childhood. “In my room I had everything I needed. As long as I was making music or listening to music, I was happy.”
As an artist, Bad Bunny has cultivated a reputation as both an anomaly and a universal ambassador of reggaeton. He stands out among his peers in his approach to the carnal, with lyrics that drip unbridled sexuality without feeling exclusionary or disrespectful. He encourages women to dance alone at the club, and with the same fervor he calls out the boyfriends who won’t eat their ass post–perreo intenso (“intense grinding”).
“I think that sex is a giant world, and everyone is free to see it as they want and do it with whoever they want, however they want, with infinite possibilities,” he says with a suggestive smile. “In the end, we are human beings. Everybody feels, everybody falls in love with whoever they’re meant to.”
Latin hip-hop—for years labeled with the catch-all of música urbana or urbano—and the genres under its umbrella, including dembow, reggaeton and Latin trap, have been the subject of debate regarding (dis)empowerment, exclusion and objectification. This is due not only to the music’s overlooked Black roots and the struggles of Afro-Latinx artists to get the same exposure as their white peers, but also to the problematic aspects that often pervade its lyrics, the by-product of sexist and machista cultural influences. Bad Bunny consistently subverts these stereotypes with work that centers women’s pleasure, illuminates queer voices and crafts a futuristic imagery to discuss these stories. Before him few, if any, mainstream cis-hetero musicians in Latin hip-hop cared for these issues, let alone tackled them head-on.
Building on foundations laid by queer reggaetonerxs—late artists Puerto Rican trapero Kevin Fret and Dominican dembow pioneer La Delfi among them—the genre is edging toward inclusivity. This shift is clearly visible in the rise of queer femme artists King Jedet and Sailorfag and the digitally driven “neo-perreo” movement helmed by artists like Tomasa Del Real and Ms Nina, an emotional reggaeton that preaches—to use the English translation of the title of Ms Nina’s debut mixtape—“twerking on the outside, crying on the inside.” Bad Bunny isn’t a part of this lineage, but his prominent allyship as a mainstream Latin artist in a genre dominated by hetero-patriarchal machismo sets a precedent for these voices to be amplified. “I think I have an audience split in two: fans of Bad Bunny and fans of reggaeton itself, and I want to merge the two,” he says. “I feel I have a big sector to educate. There’s a lot of people who won’t pay attention to other people calling them out, but they follow Bad Bunny. If he tells them what’s good, maybe they can grow as people and come to accept others.”
He’s been criticized for the perceived co-optation of queer femme aesthetics, but his commitment to gender-fluid performance reveals a determination to strengthen inclusivity. A sparkly manicure on a popular cis-hetero man won’t change the world, but he’s not aiming that high: He just wants to help everyone get down together without fear, and let them know they’re all welcome on the dance floor.
“There’s nothing worse than being somewhere and feeling like you don’t belong,” he says. The press-on he’s been playing with throughout our interview finally pops off, and he tosses it aside. “I’ve been trying to make sure everybody feels part of the culture of reggaeton. I want to make sure they feel that they have someone there, that friend that can stand up for them.”
Bad Bunny’s work is notable for the way it elevates queer themes, from the gender-bending “Caro” video, which features model Jazmyne Joy rapping in Bad Bunny’s place and a catwalk dominated by LGBTQ+ folx, to the spectrum of lovers embracing in the “Ignorantes” video. He has become known for confronting homophobia and rejecting traditional gender roles in everyday life, denouncing a nail salon that refused him service for being a man and calling out peers like fellow Boricua reggaetonero Don Omar for making prejudiced comments.
In the standout YHLQMDLG cut “La Difícil,” he takes on sexism, aiming to shatter the trope of the one-dimensional sexy “video girl” by telling the story of a dancer supporting her daughter as a single parent. And strikingly, the press cycle for YHLQMDLG kicked off with Bad Bunny performing on The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon wearing a skirt and a shirt emblazoned with “THEY KILLED ALEXA, NOT A MAN IN A SKIRT,” drawing worldwide attention to the murder of Alexa Negrón Luciano, a trans woman, in Puerto Rico.
“The music industry and society in general [treat women] like they’re nothing,” he says. “Women are human beings and deserve respect and the same treatment as anybody else.”
As he talks about “Yo Perreo Sola” (“I Twerk Alone”), his favorite track off YHLQMDLG, Bad Bunny starts chipping away at another of his gold press-ons. “It’s about someone who doesn’t need anybody to do her thing,” he says. “Women can do whatever they want on their own.”
This anodyne proclamation feels tainted by the absence of a featured-artist credit on the album for reggaetonera Génesis Ríos, better known as Nesi, who sings the hook. (She does receive credit as a writer.) Bad Bunny justified the omission to Rolling Stone by saying it was the same way he treated Ricky Martín’s uncredited appearance as a backup singer on “Caro.”
For her part, Nesi seems unruffled. “I would have loved to be featured, but if I had to do it all again the same way, I would. He’s doing it right,” she tells me. “As a woman [in reggaeton], I’ve had to constantly deal with machismo. That said, I don’t think it’s overpowering the genre anymore.”
The “Yo Perreo Sola” video is Bad Bunny’s most fleshed-out artistic vision yet—with an emphasis on flesh—featuring the 21st century playboy in full drag, twerking in a red latex outfit and later collared and leashed by a bevy of enthroned women. These shots are interspersed with scenes of him perreando with his drag alter ego, swaggering atop a car in a field of flowers, and shots of women—from stallions to seniors—perreando solas.
With its hyperinclusiveness and its nod to the Latin American feminist movement Ni Una Menos (“not one [womxn] less”) via a green neon sign, the video set the internet ablaze.
“I loved [the video] because of the mirror it points at society,” says rising Mexican designer and stylist Lula, whose Sailor Moon–inspired fashion was worn by Bad Bunny in the single’s promo photos. “Trans and non-binary people have always been here, and what Bad Bunny did takes a lot of guts.”
Others were more critical: Why not spotlight a real trans woman instead of centering and inserting himself, a cis Latino, in the conversation?
But Bad Bunny isn’t looking for approval or for absolution. He has stumbled with big issues, including his tepid hand-washing response to accusations of sexual assault made against his road manager, and his much-delayed acknowledgment of the recent global reckoning with centuries of global anti-Blackness and systemic racism (his privileged excuse was being in a remote location sans phone). One might look at Bad Bunny’s elaborate fake nails or his turn in drag and wonder, Is it possible that his convictions about inclusion and equality are just another costume?That said, there is no doubt that Bad Bunny is due fair credit for raising awareness of queer issues in the genre, especially as a white-passing cis-hetero reggaetonero. No other high-profile mainstream Latin artist seems as aggressive or sincere about it as he does, although there is an important distinction between being the ally that he is and ascending to “queer icon,” which Ricky Martín has prematurely labeled him.
“I do all of this and I’m not even sure what I cause,” he says. “It’s not until someone comes up to me and tells me, ‘Man, thank you,’ that I realize the impact.”
Bad Bunny has become something of a national hero in Puerto Rico. He has continued to uplift the island of Borinquen both in his work and out of the studio, famously pausing a tour to call for the resignation of now-former Governor Ricardo Rosselló and dropping “Afilando los Cuchillos” (“Sharpening the Knives”), a razor-sharp protest song with Residente and iLe of Calle 13. One of the harder cuts on YHLQMDLG is “P FKN R,” in which Bad Bunny exchanges exultations of pride for his island with Kendo Kaponi and Arcángel, the latter delivering the song’s most telling line: “Donde yo crecí la vida no vale na’ / So, mejor que no te aferre”—“Where I grew up, life doesn’t mean anything / So it’s best not to get too attached.” For anyone fleeing a crisis or surviving within one, the line rings chillingly true. For the citizens of Puerto Rico, where the poverty rate hovers just above 43 percent, it is a welcome acknowledgement of their harsh reality. Coming from the boy who made it out of Almirante Sur on Vega Baja’s southside to become the superstar who on national television called out the U.S. president for mismanaging Puerto Rico’s ongoing post-hurricane disaster, it is a strong show of solidarity.
“I have always done what I feel is right,” he says. “I was born in Puerto Rico, and I still live in Puerto Rico. I am living my dream thanks to Puerto Rico, and more than a responsibility, it’s a connection that makes me do things naturally—get it? If something happens and we need to help, I do it because they are my people, famous or not—it’s a matter of the heart.”
There’s a telling lyric from “<3,” the closing track of YHLQMDLG—the “thank you” that follows the 19 palos. Over a subtle, harp-infused beat, Bad Bunny solemnly raps, “Yo no quiero ser un dios / Yo no quiero ser un rey”—“I don’t want to be a god / I don’t want to be a king.” He smiles when I ask why he chose to end an album of bangers on a quiet note.
“It’s a message from me to you. Like, this record is so lit that this is me tucking you into bed and saying, ‘You hung out, you drank, you threw up. Go to sleep, friend. Shh….’”
This is not so much a posture of divinity, but rather one of deep humanity. And maybe it’s just this—Bad Bunny’s quiet, caring core—that generates the gravitational pull of his universe, one where video girls and queer people are honored for their full individuality, trap lords can don drag without having their masculinity questioned and young boys have third eyes that dare to look toward a brighter future.
Grooming by Christopher Vargas; makeup by Hanic Arias; wardrobe by Storm Pablo; manicure by Vee (Valentina) Escobar; jewelry by Jewels by Dunn; set design by Emmanuel Pimento. Director of photography Marcello Peschiera; camera operator William Graydon; transcription/translation by E.R. Pulgar. Bad Bunny’s Playboy bling: Joyrich Rabbit Head necklace, Missguided Playboy Masthead choker, Zippo Rabbit Head lighter.