During 2020 many people faced difficult challenges and put their “New year, new me” resolutions on hold, but then there’s people like Bad Bunny that made the best out of a terrible situation. From the start of 2020 until the very end he didn’t stop to take a breath, releasing 3 hit albums, finding ingenious ways to reimagine his performances, and venturing into acting and fashion collaborations. The Puerto Rican artist broke many records and made history in the music world. Besides all of his work with music, he also was a player in the NBA 2020 All-star game, a guest star in the WWE, and booked a major role in the Pay-per-view event Wrestlemania. If you think about it, 2020 was Bad Bunny’s year and here’s a few reasons why.
At the beginning of the year, he performed at the Super Bowl LIV Half-time show along with Shakira, Jennifer Lopez and J Balvin. From there Bad Bunny started working with more artists and preparing to launch a new album in the next month. On February 29th, he released his new album “YHLQMDLG” which reached No.2 on the Billboard album chart making it the highest-charting all- Spanish-language album of all time. Completing this milestone was a huge step in his career and for the music industry since “YHLQMDLG” garnered 3.3 billion streams on Spotify making it Spotify’s most-streamed album globally in a year where many other albums were released. Besides that, Bad Bunny is also Spotify’s most streamed artist of 2020 with 8.3 billion streams globally followed by Drake and J Balvin. During a Instagram live stream in the beginning of May, he talked and played some unreleased songs and also some songs that he did not plan on releasing. For weeks, his fans took to all social platforms begging for him to release some of the songs. Around the end of May, he dropped yet another album titled “Las Que No Iban A Salir” with no advance warning which featured all of the songs he didn’t plan on releasing.
Since he didn’t get to perform his songs in front of a live audience, he performed on the top of a 2-story bus driving around New York while 10 million viewers watched from home while fans followed the bus live in New York. Later in October, he performed in front of his first live audience in the Uforia concert. Later in November he released his third album of the year titled “El Último Tour del Mundo” which was his first No.1 album and also made history with this album as the first all-Spanish-language LP to top charts such as Rolling Stone’s Top 200 Albums. To top off his music career for 2020, he received 8 nominations at the Latin Grammys this year- winning one for reggaeton performance for “Yo Perreo sola” as well as two American Music Awards and most recently two Grammy Nominations, winning one for Best Latin Pop album with “YGLQMDLG.” His rise in the industry opened many doors for him.
In regards to things outside of the music industry, Bad Bunny made a collaboration with Crocs which immediately were sold out and kick-started his acting career as Arturo “El Kitty” Páez on the third season of Netflix’s “Narco’s: México.” He also recently teamed up with Adidas on which they describe as a long-term partnership that will see us work on a number of collaborative projects and product drops over the coming seasons inspired by how rapper Travis Scott collaborated with Nike and it was massive. The Puerto Rican’s rise in fame has spread throughout various industries in a matter of time.
2020 has been a year where it seemed that time was frozen; this was not the case for Bad Bunny. Although the rise of Bad Bunny’s career has been over the course of five years, it is evident to say that 2020 was his peak at a global level. His passion, dedication, and creativity have sparked nothing but success for this Latin genius. Fans all over the world have witnessed year after year how Bad Bunny renovates his image and music in ways nobody ever imagined. From having line designs in his hairstyle, to dressing up as a drag queen for a music video, there is nothing that the global phenomenon hasn’t done that doesn’t cause controversy. The years to come are uncertain but there is no doubt that Bad Bunny will take them by storm regardless of the circumstances.