Apple Music Artist of the Year 2022

So many of music’s biggest stars released amazing music in 2022—but only one truly owned the year like no one else. Released this past May, Un Verano Sin Ti, the sixth project in four years by Puerto Rican megastar Bad Bunny, is not only Apple Music’s most streamed album of 2022 and now the biggest Latin album of all time, it spent more weeks at No. 1 on the Billboard 200 than any album this decade. And beyond the eye-popping numbers, no artist better represents—or was more responsible for—the seismic shift in global pop over the past few years. Further fuelling the streams of Un Verano Sin Ti is Bad Bunny’s corresponding World’s Hottest Tour, which broke records in the US and continues to sell out massive sports arenas and entertainment complexes in Latin America. He’s crossed over into acting, moving from his memorable role on Narcos: Mexico to an even more memorable one in this past summer’s blockbuster Bullet Train with Brad Pitt. He’s got an ongoing in-demand line of sneakers with Adidas that go out of stock within minutes of release. While the city of Los Angeles dedicated an official day to him, 1 October, for his “immense cultural impact to the Latino community”, he raised money and awareness to help Puerto Rico recover from the devastation of Hurricane Fiona. Below, explore Bad Bunny’s meteoric rise, the music he helped revolutionise and the historic 2022 that made him our Artist of the Year.

Much fuss gets made about his supermarket bag-boy beginnings, but listening to Benito Antonio Martínez Ocasio’s early work leaves little doubt about his innate talent. Starting in 2016, contending formidably in a singles-driven Latin hip-hop industry, he stood out for clever verses on songs such as “Tú No Metes Cabra” as well as spotlight-stealing moments on packed posse cuts like “Diles” and “Solita” opposite far more seasoned artists like Arcángel, Wisin and Ñengo Flow. While dropping reggaetón singles like “Mayores” with Becky G. and “Amantes de una Noche” with Natti Natasha, his old-school influences manifested mainly over trap beats by the scene’s leading producers—a reflection of the then-burgeoning sound echoing out of speakers from San Juan and Carolina to New York and Miami. Yet he shrewdly differentiated himself whenever possible, professing his love for professional wrestling with the boisterous “Chambea” and turning sadboy provocateur on minimalist piano ballad “Amorfoda”. In some two years’ time, he’d become a leading light of Latin trap and the genre’s most promising representative from his generation, earning himself an Apple Music Up Next distinction in March 2018.

Shortly after, Bad Bunny appeared on the scorching reggaetón kiss-off “Te Boté (Remix)” alongside Latin stars Nicky Jam and Ozuna. Cardi B’s even more popular “I Like It” soon followed, a bilingual boogaloo-infused trap variant that featured verses by both Benito and J Balvin. The success of these two tracks signified a seismic shift and sent a clear message as to the global power and prevalence of Spanish-language music in the streaming age. Reggaetón’s concurrent pop pivot helped land him significant placements with well-established Latin stars Jennifer Lopez and Ricky Martin. But it was the Drake team-up “MIA” and the subsequent Christmas Eve 2018 release of his full-length debut X 100PRE (pronounced “siempre”) that changed everything. The album overflowed with inventive trap takes, which made the far more reggaetón-heavy mini-album OASIS with J Balvin the following summer that much more surprising. And then 2020 yielded no fewer than three projects, starting with the full-length club-centric perreo homage YHLQMDLG and wrapping nine months later with the quarantine-recorded futurism of EL ÚLTIMO TOUR DEL MUNDO.

Following the marathon of 2020, Bad Bunny was far more sparing with new material in 2021. He shared a handful of singles that kept fans excited and intrigued, from the Japanese nods of “Yonaguni” to the bachata power move of “Volví” with a reunited Aventura. By this stage he’d garnered such substantial stature that collaborating with him all but ensured a boost to lesser-known artists’ profiles. Collaborations over the course of a few years with Jhayco, Eladio Carrión and Mora pushed their respective careers forward and made them some of the brightest Latin stars of the 2020s. His moodier side impacted sounds in other seemingly disparate Latin music scenes, evident in the corridos tumbados of Natanael Cano (whose “Soy el Diablo” Bad Bunny had remixed in 2019) and related sad sierreño styles of Junior H and other rising teenage música mexicana artists. But the sudden arrival of Un Verano Sin Ti in May 2022 put all the focus back on Bad Bunny and galvanised his massive fanbase. Described by the artist as a summer playlist of sorts, the project presented his most expansive and evocative musical vision to date. Gone was the streetwise trap of his past, supplanted by potent and uniquely genre-bent takes on reggaetón, pop, indie and tropical forms.