Bad Bunny’s rise to record breaker: Latin music star has the most streamed album ever

Six studio albums and seven years after his debut, Bad Bunny has become one of the highest charting Latin music artists of all time – and his influence has crossed seas, genres, and industries. 

Hailing from Puerto Rico, his music is rooted in the sounds and culture of his home country – which was particularly apparent on his most recent studio album DeBÍ TiRAR MáS FOToS (I Should Have Taken More Photos).

The album debuted on 5 January, and immediately reached No. 1 on multiple all-genre charts, including the Billboard 200 and Top Streaming Albums. Pitchfork reviewed the album as “studied, deliberate, and intricate, interpolating multiple generations of Puerto Rican rhythms: Salsa, plena, bolero, and old-school perreo paired with today’s Latin pop and música urbana,” and commended the artist for the evolving in his music while staying faithful to his community.

The Guinness World Records title holder also announced that instead of touring globally for his new album, he will be doing a 30-show residency exclusively on his home turf in Puerto Rico at the Coliseo de Puerto Rico José Miguel Agrelot (a.k.a. El Choli). This sold-out residency – which made 400,000 ticket sales in the first four hours, half to international tourists – promises to be one of the largest local concert residencies ever, and could transform Puerto Rico’s tourism industry.

So for his 31st birthday, which is today, 10 March – we decided to take a dive into his 11 Guinness World Records, and all of his other amazing artistic accomplishments. Happy birthday, Bad Bunny!

Although Bad Bunny (whose real name is Benito Martínez Ocasio) always was musical – he started singing in a church choir when he was five years old – it wasn’t until 2016 that he got his first break, by posting songs on Soundcloud. After getting picked up by Rimas Entertainment, he dropped his first studio album X 100PRE in December 2018, which peaked at No. 11 on the Billboard 200. 

That album won him his first Guinness World Records title for most weeks at No.1 on Billboard’s Top Latin Albums chart (male) at 46 weeks, which he shares with fellow Puerto Rican artist Ozuna for his album Odisea.

And Bad Bunny actually has further record history in common with Ozuna from the Latin-music, Spanish-language Premios Lo Nuestro awards. 

On 18 February 2021, Bad Bunny won seven trophies at the 33rd edition of the awards, granting him another record title for most Premio Lo Nuestro awards won in a single year by a main-credited artist. While Ozuna did win nine PLN awards in 2019, only two of them – Male Urban Artist of the Year and Tour of the Year – credited him as a solo or lead artist, while all of Bad Bunny’s songs recognize him as a solo/lead artist.

But after featuring on tracks with artists like Nicki Minaj, 21 Savage, and Cardi B – as well as big Latin artists like J Balvin and Farruko – Bad Bunny’s chart success continued in the 2020s, with sophomore album YHLQMDLG (2020) reaching No. 2 on Billboard and giving him his first Grammy for Best Latin Pop or Urban Album, and third album El Último Tour del Mundo (2020) hitting No. 1 (which became the first all-Spanish language album to top the Billboard 200).

El Último Tour del Mundo also came at a time when the western record industry began to officially recognize international acts, and consequently created two new award categories for the 64th Annual Grammy Awards in 2022: Best Global Music Performance and Best Música Urbana Album. Bad Bunny took home the latter prize for that album, which gave him another record title for first winner of the Best Música Urbana Album Grammy.

He really found international success in 2022 however, after releasing his fourth studio album Un Verano Sin Ti (A Summer Without You), which topped the all-genre chart for 13 weeks to become the top Billboard 200 album of 2022. 

The album also made history in 2023 when it became the first Album of the Year Grammy nomination for a Spanish-language album, which it sadly lost to Harry Styles’ Harry’s House.

However, he won many other accolades for the work, such as: the most Billboard Latin Music Awards nominations for an artist in a single year (23, including Artist of the Year, Top Latin Album of the Year, Songwriter of the Year and Tour of the Year), first male Latin artist to win Artist of the Year at the MTV Video Music Awards, and most streamed album on Spotify (current year). 

Famously, the album also is the most streamed album on Spotify ever, beating out other chart-topping artists like Taylor Swift or Beyoncé. According to chartmasters.org as of 24 February 2024, it had amassed 15,738,250,533 streams, with six of the 23 tracks having surpassed the billion streams mark: “Me Porto Bonito” (feat. Chencho Corleone), “Tití Me Preguntó”, “Callaíta” (feat. Tainy), “Ojitos Lindos” (feat. Bomba Estéreo), “Efecto,” and “Moscow Mule”.

Largely because of the album’s success, he was also the first non-English language artist to achieve the tremendous title of becoming Spotify’s most streamed artist of the year, which he did so three consecutive times between 2020 and 2022.

And Bad Bunny’s influence has continued into the early 2020s – such as winning Artist of the Year at the Billboard Latin Music Awards four times in a row between 2020 and 2023, which got him a record title for most consecutive Artist of the Year awards won at the Billboard Latin Music Awards. 

He also won the award for most Top Latin Album of the Year awards won at the Billboard Latin Music Awards at the 29th ceremony, when he officially broke a four-way tie held amongst other two-time winners Enrique Iglesias (2009 and 2011), Romeo Santos (2013 and 2015) and Juan Gabriel (2016–17).

And outside of his music, he’s starred in movies like Bullet Train (2022), hosted Saturday Night Live, posed on the cover of Vogue, raised awareness for local Puerto Rican wildlife, and become a WWE wrestler – yes, he literally fought on pay-per-view and at the 2022 Royal Rumble.

But despite all his success, Bad Bunny has tried to remain loyal to his roots, and to give back when he can. After the release of his latest album, he told Billboard, “Man, obviously I’m thankful with the way the world has embraced this album.

“The thing is, this project… it isn’t mine. It belongs to many people: everyone who worked with me, it belongs to Puerto Rico, my friends, my family. This project belongs to all of us who feel proud of being from Puerto Rico and being Latin.”

So here’s to Bad Bunny…and now we’re off to listen to BAILE INoLVIDABLE again.

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