Few Australian tours carry the weight of Bad Bunny’s first-ever shows in the country. In May last year, the Puerto Rican artist, born Benito Antonio Martínez Ocasio, announced his only Australian performances at Sydney’s Engie Stadium ahead of a run of career-defining milestones, including being named Spotify’s most-streamed artist globally in 2025, a historic win at the 2026 Grammy awards and a zeitgeist-capturing Super Bowl half-time show whose message of unity was largely lost on the political right.
At the Grammys, his 2025 album Debí Tirar Más Fotos became the first predominantly Spanish-language album to win album of the year. In his acceptance speech, Bad Bunny directly criticised the Trump administration’s harassment of immigrants and dedicated the award to “all the people that had to leave their homeland, their country, to follow their dreams”. That sentiment resonated deeply with Latin American and Caribbean diasporas worldwide, including in Australia.
