For this yr’s replace of our ongoing Biggest Pop Star by Yr undertaking, Billboard is counting down our workers picks for the highest 10 pop stars of 2023 all this week. At No. 8, we bear in mind the yr in Dangerous Bunny — who, together with his unrelenting affect on the worldwide music scene, continues to form the material of up to date popular culture.
Within the pop realm of 2022, there was no disputing Dangerous Bunny‘s indomitable reign — an accumulation of years since urbano’s international breakthrough that shot him to the forefront of the popular culture zeitgeist. With almost 435 million grossed on the highway and one of many largest albums of the final decade, the 13-week Billboard 200-topper Un Verano Sin Ti, Benito Antonio Martínez Ocasio turned the most important star on the planet, and our Biggest Pop Star of 2022, all whereas singing in Spanish.
The yr kicked off within the afterglow of his 2022 triumphs. From casually tossing off collaborative hits alongside Ñengo Stream (the Christmas season-release of “Gato de la Noche”) and Eladio Carrion (“Coco Chanel”) to the now-infamous incident of throwing a fan’s cellular phone into the ocean, Dangerous Bunny wasted no time making waves in 2023, effortlessly.
Billboard’s Biggest Pop Stars of 2023:
Introduction & Honorable Mentions | Rookie of the Yr: Peso Pluma | Comeback of the Yr: Miley Cyrus | No. 10: Drake | No. 9: Doja Cat
In February, the performer opened the sixty fifth annual Grammy Awards with a historic Un Verano Sin Ti medley that paid homage to his beloved Puerto Rico. Working the gamut of Caribbean music — from merengue to plena and, after all, reggaetón — the celebrity introduced beforehand overshadowed genres to primetime tv on the prestigious ceremony. (This additionally included a viral second when the published’s closed captioning described him as “singing in non-English.”)
Dangerous Bunny was up for finest pop solo efficiency, finest música urbana album, and the coveted album of the yr awards. Regardless of not clinching the latter — memorably shedding to Harry Kinds’ Harry’s Home — Bunny nonetheless made historical past as the primary all-Spanish LP to obtain a Grammy nomination for Album of the Yr. (In October, he would inform Vainness Truthful, “Perhaps they weren’t prepared for a Spanish-language album to win the massive prize.”) The evening was nonetheless a hit as he secured the perfect música urbana award for the second yr in a row.
Stillz
Stillz
In the meantime, rumors of a romantic entanglement with Kardashian sibling and mannequin Kendall Jenner started to swirl that month, when TMZ captured the couple leaving a restaurant in Beverly Hills. In March, after getting seen on one other date in West Hollywood, US Weekly reported from a supply that they had been “not official,” nevertheless, they had been “attending to know one another higher.”
The pairing, nevertheless, was not universally embraced by all followers, particularly Latina followers. Refinery29’s Somos wrote that followers felt a “collective sense of betrayal.” “For a lot of Latina followers venting their grievances on-line, Dangerous Bunny’s current dates with Jenner drive them to consider the chances and limits of standard tradition and what occurs when the icons we love don’t love us again,” mentioned scholar of gender and ethnic research, Yessica Garcia Hernandez, in April. “There isn’t any denying that Latina followers have branded Benito as a up to date image of Latina feminisms, and now there appears to be a cultural expectation from followers that need Benito to stay dedicated to his social justice stardom.” Nonetheless, being half of 1 of popular culture’s preeminent energy {couples} additional strengthened his standing as an A+ lister.
April marked one other milestone for Dangerous Bunny, who turned Coachella’s first-ever Spanish-language headliner. “Latinos have been rompiéndola (killing it) for a while now. I simply did a tour final yr that I by no means imagined I’d be capable to do,” he mentioned throughout his Coachella efficiency, alluding to his record-shattering World’s Hottest Tour. “I’ve been out for a while however [I’m back] and it feels cabrón to be right here tonight and that you simply’re all right here with me.” He introduced the standard (in addition to some uncommon) suspects on stage, together with Put up Malone, Ñengo Stream, Jhayco, and Jowell & Randy — oh, whereas additionally leaping on a jet ski at one level.
Only a few days later, after his historic efficiency, the Puerto Rican hitmaker embraced the burgeoning música Mexicana increase with Billboard’s December 2022 Latin artists on the rise, Grupo Frontera, on “un x100to.” The Edgar Barrera-assisted collaboration not solely dominated throughout a number of Billboard charts — Sizzling 100 (No. 5), World 200 (No. 1), World Excl. US (No. 1), Sizzling Latin Songs (No. 2) — however additional helped gasoline the style’s worldwide explosion.
Breaking a social media hiatus in Could, Bunny launched the Jersey membership one-off “The place She Goes,” produced by MAG, adopted by collaborations such because the synth-driven “Mojabi Ghost” by Tainy, from the producer’s debut album Information; and “Ok-Pop” by Travis Scott, additionally with The Weeknd, a buoyant entice music with Afrobeat parts. Whereas these tracks debuted properly and showcased Bunny’s versatility, none reached the meteoric success of his earlier hits.
Then got here the reggaetón quantity “Un Preview” in September, setting the stage for his return-to-roots, Latin-trap-heavy fifth solo album, October’s Nadie Sabe Lo Que Va a Pasar Mañana. The album landed one other resounding No. 1 debut on the Billboard 200, but additionally skilled a considerably softer reception than Un Verano Sin Ti. (Nadie Sabe debuted with 185,000 models in its first week, roughly 90,000 shy of the 274,000 posted in Could 2022 by Un Verano Sin Ti in its first body.)
Nonetheless, 5 years in the past, the Billboard 200 had by no means had a Spanish-language album atop its rankings, and Dangerous Bunny has now performed it three albums in a row, beginning with El Último Tour del Mundo. And though the Nadie Sabe songs didn’t cling to the charts in the identical manner, it did turn into Spotify’s 2023 most-streamed album in a single day upon its launch.
In a notable second for mainstream American tv, Benito additionally hosted and carried out on Saturday Evening Reside the week after the album drop. Billboard’s chief content material officer, Latin/Español, Leila Cobo wrote on the normalization of Spanish on one of many longest-running reveals in American popular culture: “Because of a rapper from Vega Baja, Puerto Rico, Latin presence in U.S. popular culture has been mainstreamed for maybe the primary time since I Love Lucy within the Nineteen Fifties,” mentioned Cobo. “The massive distinction is, I Love Lucy used comedy as a automobile to “translate” Desi Arnaz’s accented English, accompanied by boogaloo. In distinction, Dangerous Bunny makes no try at translation or compromise when he very matter of factly speaks in Spanish.”
Because the yr attracts to a detailed, Dangerous Bunny is plotting the Most Wished Tour for 2024, kicking off on Feb. 21 in Salt Lake Metropolis. Regardless of remaining one of many globe’s largest and finest pop stars, the joy of his earlier yr appears to have waned, with elevated competitors from rising stars like Peso Pluma, who’s main the música mexicana explosion in the direction of American pop; and Karol G, who additionally had a historic Billboard 200 debut and dominated the highest-grossing Latin excursions of the yr. Nevertheless, Benito nonetheless secured a prime 5 rating in Latin excursions — he positioned No. 28 on the all-genres 2023 year-end boxscore chart. However the singer/rapper nonetheless ranked No. 1 on Billboard’s year-end High Latin Artists chart, with Peso coming in second, and Karol in third place.
And lest anybody neglect, El Conejo Malo declared exactly one yr in the past, “I’m taking a break. 2023 is for me, for my bodily well being, my emotional well being to breathe, take pleasure in my achievements.” As we stand on the fruits of this year-long journey — witnessing his triumphant return to the Coachella stage as a headliner, his exploration of numerous musical genres, his unyielding affect on popular culture — it’s evident that his model of “taking a break” remains to be a rare metamorphosis.
