2022 was a big year for a lot of artists, including Benito Antonio Martinez Ocasio a.k.a Bad Bunny.

The Puerto Rican star on May 6th, 2022 launched his most commercially successful album Un Verano Sin Ti. It is the only album in history to spend 13 weeks at No.1 in the U.S. Billboard 200, spent 6 months in the top 2, and the second Spanish-language album to debut at these positions, following his 2020’s release of El Ultimo Tour Del Mundo. The album combines genres like reggaeton, bomba y plena, dembow, mambo, merengue, indie, rock ballad, salsa, cumbia, etc.

In his Artist of the Year interview with Apple, he stated that with Un Verano Sin Ti, I wanted something more Caribbean, more tropical, more danceable.” I believe these qualities allowed the album to be received so well and break language barriers. I know people that don’t even know Spanish who started listening to Bad Bunny because of this album. That’s powerful.

Going into the streaming aspect, Bad Bunny was the most streamed artist of 2022 in Spotify for the third time in a row, breaking his last record of 9 billion streams with a whopping 18.5 billion streams. Un Verano Sin Ti was also the only Spanish-language album to reach 10 billion streams and is now the second most streamed album on Spotify.

Bad Bunny not only broke streaming records but also had two tours in the same year. In the first half of 2022, “El Último Tour Del Mundo” tour was underway in arenas. While the tour was happening, he teased a new album that would come out during summer and announced a full 21-stadium tour across the U.S. and Latin America. Combining both tours, he grossed $373,463,379 earning the top spot for highest-grossing tours of 2022 with Elton John in second place. I’m going to brag real quick, but I was fortunate enough to go to his Atlanta show on August 8th and the energy was insane. The lights, the dancing, the spectacle, it was all on point.

Though he didn’t win, Bad Bunny already made history by being nominated for Album of the Year. It is the first Spanish-language album to be nominated in the Grammy’s 64-year history. As a Puerto Rican, born and raised, my opinion of Bad Bunny may come off as a little biased, but it’s so awe-inspiring to see him reach these heights. Knowing that you can be this big without changing your culture, your language, your slang, and your way of being is already pretty incredible.