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The Independent UK
The Independent UK
Lifestyle
Kevin E G Perry

From grocery store bagger to a Super Bowl stage MAGA can’t silence: The meteoric rise of Bad Bunny

Donald Trump certainly knows who Bad Bunny is now. In October last year, the president claimed he’d “never heard” of the trailblazing 31-year-old, born Benito Antonio Martínez Ocasio. As recently as 2016, Ocasio was working as a grocery store bagger in Vega Baja, Puerto Rico, uploading tracks to SoundCloud between shifts. Today, the Puerto Rican star has made himself simply inescapable.

His sixth album, Debí Tirar Más Fotos, became the first Spanish-language record ever to win the Grammy for Album of the Year earlier this month. On Sunday, he became the first solo male Latin artist to headline the Super Bowl Halftime Show, as well as the first person to perform on the NFL’s most high-profile stage entirely in a language other than English. However, Trump still wasn’t impressed. “Nobody understands a word this guy is saying,” the president fumed on Truth Social about the performance. His negative remarks echoed his previous comments about Ocasio and fellow Super Bowl act Green Day last month. “I’m anti-them,” the president grumbled. “I think it’s a terrible choice. All it does is sow hatred. Terrible.”

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