NO PLACE LIKE HOME

On his new album, Bad Bunny eschews the trappings of pop in favor of the music, history, and struggles of Puerto Rico

- SOLCYRÉ BURGA AND ANDREW R. CHOW

LAST SUMMER, BAD BUNNY WAS DRIVING through San Juan, crying and feeling sad "about a lot of things." As he looked out his window, he saw beaches filled with blissed-out tourists-which made him feel worse. He began thinking about how the relationship between Puerto Rico's external perception and its sometimes-harsh realities relates to his personal life.

"Tourists come to enjoy the beautiful places, and then they leave and they don't have to deal with the problems," he told TIME in Spanish in a Manhattan hotel room in late December, as he offered a preview of his new album just days before yet another blackout blanketed Puerto Rico in darkness. "Translating that to a romance, there are people who arrive to share [memories] and only see the most beautiful part of you," he says. "And they leave. They couldn't see that part of each of us: the defects, the trauma, the wounds of the past. It's like they were a tourist in your life." Bad Bunny, born Benito Antonio Martínez Ocasio, spent about half of 2024 abroad, showing off the best parts of himself: he wrapped up an arena tour that grossed more than $200 million, co-chaired the Met Gala, performed at Vogue World 2024 in Paris-where he took a private tour of the Louvre with his on-and-off love interest Kendall Jenner.

He was the third most streamed artist on Spotify, marking his sixth straight year in the top five.