Bad Bunny's Year of Rest and Relaxation

Benito Antonio Martínez Ocasio swears he's taking a breather from ultra-mega global superstardom to enjoy life in puerto rico and some downtime with his girlfriend. Just don't ask him about the album he's about to release

- By Michelle Ruiz

It’s 10 minutes past noon in the historic San Juan neighborhood of Miramar, and Benito Antonio Martínez Ocasio is hiding just out of sight, in a coral-colored speakeasy behind a ghost kitchen on a street that snakes to the beach. The chameleonic reggaeton supernova known as Bad Bunny is sitting at a corner table before an evergrowing feast of garlic knots and meatballs and two untouched pizzas, one pepperoni, one Hawaiian.

For once, he’s doing nada, the 29-year-old tells me in his blithe baritone. “It’s been my quietest day, with nothing to do.” This latest trip home came on a whim. “Summer came, a couple of great reggaeton songs came out, and I said, ‘I’m off. I’m going to Puerto Rico—like a vagabond.’ ”

Martínez had declared a year of rest after cementing himself as one of the most thrillingly prolific artists working today, a powerhouse whose superlatives include a Grammy album of the year nomination, more Spotify streams in 2022 than Beyoncé or Taylor, and the launch of the highest-grossing tour ever by a Latin artist, El Último Tour del Mundo (in support of two of the three albums he’d released in 2020 while the rest of us were dabbling in tie-dye). After the final stop, Martínez dropped another album: the culture-cracking critical obsession