Dangerous Bunny was all smiles and nerves whereas presenting his longtime supervisor, Noah Assad, with the Govt of the Yr award at Billboard‘s 2023 Energy 100 occasion on Wednesday (Feb. 2) at Goya Studios.
After being launched by Leila Cobo, Billboard‘s Chief Content material Officer Latin/Español, the worldwide sensation, who sometimes opts to publicly converse in Spanish, determined to present English a strive, lightheartedly joking with the group, “Tonight is a particular evening not as a result of my buddy is profitable this award, it’s extra as a result of I’m making my first English speech ever.” He was met with supportive applause and cheers, with a handful of attendees encouraging him to talk in Spanish anyway. However, El Conejo Malo discovered center floor, sharing a heartfelt speech in a mixture of each languages.
“I do know my man doesn’t like this type of factor — this consideration, the speech, this corny s–t,” he mentioned amidst laughter from the group. “This award means rather a lot to me, the identical method that my very own awards imply rather a lot for him. It’s as a result of this award is the proof that I’m not working alone, that desires come true, but it surely’s by no means solely by your self. It’s all the time about workforce work.”
Collectively, the dynamic Puerto Rican pair have achieved unprecedented heights in Spanish and English markets, together with Dangerous Bunny’s first of two excursions in 2022, El Último Tour del Mundo, boasting the highest gross sales day for any tour on Ticketmaster (since Beyoncé and Jay-Z’s On the Run II tour went on sale in 2018), promoting out almost half 1,000,000 tickets in lower than every week. 4 months after the tour closed, Dangerous Bunny commenced his World’s Hottest Tour stadium run, which made him the primary artist to ever obtain separate $100 million-plus excursions in the identical calendar 12 months. The worldwide pop star’s 81 concert events in 2022 grossed $434.9 million, which marked the best calendar-year whole for any artist for the reason that launching of Billboard Boxscore within the Nineteen Eighties, posing it to change into the largest Latin tour ever.
“I got here from a household of three brothers, I’m the oldest one,” Dangerous Bunny continued. “I by no means felt what it was prefer to have a giant brother. So I need to thank Noah for being a buddy, a companion and being like a giant brother to me. I do know that it’s powerful, no soy facil, however I need to thank him for believing in me from the primary day. Not simply believing, however making these desires and that imaginative and prescient actual.”
Towards the tip of his speech, the Puerto Rican phenomenon appeared to choke up beneath his sunshine-yellow New York Yankees fitted cap. “I need to thank him for uplifting me to dream greater, to be a greater individual. To be extra such as you,” he directed to Assad. “There’s no huge Dangerous Bunny celebrity with out Noah Assad. So in the event you ask me what it feels prefer to be the primary artist on the earth, I’ve to say, I’m not. Noah is. We’re the most effective. Lo mas hijo de p–a from Puerto Rico.”
As Dangerous Bunny foreshadowed in his candy speech, Assad was a person of few phrases, extra comfy within the “huge brother” function as Benito described it: within the wings cheering on his celebrity buddy. The pair shared a heat embrace earlier than Dangerous Bunny playfully took the mic with him off stage to spare Assad the general public talking. “He had me crying within the nook,” Assad started. Ultimately, the mega exec provided a number of profound phrases, shouting out his and Benito’s hometown of Carolina, Puerto Rico, and showering the rapper with reward, because the artist had simply finished for Assad.
“All the pieces we do, we do it to Puerto Rico, to the world. I’m honored to be the primary Latin [to win this award] despite the fact that I don’t appear to be it,” he joked. “I need to thank Billboard. Billboard has all the time lined Latin. They by no means undervalue us in any method. They deal with us as equal as the worldwide American market. Now we have to be very grateful for that. On the finish of the day, me and Bunny are merchandise of hundreds of people that work very laborious on our island. All these partitions they needed to break down. There are much more tales to be advised. That is solely chapter one.”
Thanking his workforce again in Puerto Rico who couldn’t be on the occasion, Assad was dropped at tears. “Nobody wins championships alone,” he says. “It kills me that [my team] isn’t right here at present. They’re the whole lot.”
