“I want to know something before I keep going with my show,” said Bad Bunny in English three songs into a swaggering, shape-shifting two-hour headliner set at Coachella late on Friday night. “What do you prefer: me talking in English or hablando español?” The biggest artist in the world – the most streamed for three years running, with the top album (Un Verano Sin Ti) and highest grossing tour in 2022 – is not known for speaking English. His voraciously genre-absorbing music remains in rapid-fire Puerto Rican Spanish; his refusal to cater to English-only audiences in mainstream crossover is a longstanding political point. And so it was not a hard question for the sprawling crowd at Coachella, many of whom knew every one of lyrics: an emphatic “ESPAÑOL!”
The dazzling statement show Benito Antonio Martínez Ocasio, better known as the Puerto Rican superstar Bad Bunny, put on into early Saturday morning was, for his fans, a triumphant victory lap; for those who don’t speak Spanish or aren’t familiar with the ascendant world of Latin music, an education; for everyone, a bumping dance party from start to finish. The lane-switching, or braiding, was seamless, even when it wasn’t – fitting for an artist who sounds relaxed even when he’s tearing through a line or doing calisthenics on stage. In person, his baritone sounds even more vaguely underwater, magnetic and rich.
