On the onset of a worldwide pandemic in February 2020, Bad Bunny — né Benito Antonio Martínez Ocasio — launched his second studio album, YHLQMDLG, an acronym that might spell out his definitive musical ethos and life mantra: “Yo Hago Lo Que Me Da La Gana,” which interprets to “I do what I need.” The follow-up to greatest Latin pop or city album on the 63rd Annual Grammy Awards, it served as a precursor for a physique of labor that might perpetually set Bad Bunny aside from his reggaetón contemporaries.

In that very same 12 months, despite a fast-spreading virus, El Conjeo Malo carried out on the Tremendous Bowl LIV halftime present alongside pop empresses Shakira and Jennifer Lopez; grew to become the primary so-called city Latin male music artist to cowl Rolling Stone (the primary cowl to be written and shot solely by Latinas); dropped a shock compilation album Las Que No Iban a Salir (an emo play on phrases for “the songs that weren’t popping out” and his state of being holed up at house throughout lockdown); after which launched his third solo LP, El Último Tour Del Mundo, the primary all-Spanish-language album to high the US Billboard 200.

Benito’s history-making report is on the brink of compete for the highest awards at this 12 months’s Latin Grammys (Nov. 18), incomes not one however 4 nominations within the classes of album of the 12 months, greatest city music album, greatest rap/hip hop track, and greatest city track. Not too shabby for Tito y Lysaurie’s bobito, who was nonetheless bagging groceries in Puerto Rico in 2016.

The better takeaway, nonetheless, is one which bears repeating repeatedly: this Boricua from Vega Baja, in only a handful of years, helps collapse reggaetón’s historic heteronormativity. Along with his LGBTQ+ pleasant politics, eccentric trend, and temperamental lure productions, Bad Bunny continues to problem the style’s deep-rooted musical stylings and its related misogyny and homophobia.

What’s extra? Bad Bunny went from SoundCloud rapper to some of the streamed artists on the planet with none main label backing and all whereas rapping nearly solely in Spanish. Cranking out hit information with the likes of hip-hop royalty Drake and Cardi B, and acting at a few of our nation’s largest arenas, the 27-year-old remarkably demanded the world to cross over to him.

And, within the phrases of Drake himself, they do not haven’t any award for that.