By Samantha Sollitto

Bad Bunny managed to add yet another breakthrough to his name this year. The Puerto Rican rapper and singer’s album, Un Verano Sin Ti, got three Grammy nominations, including for record of the year, a first for an album in Spanish. It was already the most listened record of 2022 across all genres and has officially topped the Billboard charts for 13 non-consecutive weeks, a feat last accomplished by Drake in 2016. 

Bad Bunny’s meteoric success has pumped pop music with a new language: Spanglish. 

Songs that mix both Spanish and English lyrics have been around for a while, like the remix of “Despacito,” by Luis Fonsi, featuring Puerto Rican rapper Daddy Yankee and Justin Bieber. It was Number One on the Billboard Hot 200 for 16 weeks in 2017. 

But Bad Bunny’s rise took Spanglish to a new level. In 2020 and 2021, he was named the most streamed artist in the world on Spotify with over 9 billion streams without releasing a new album in 2021. One of his most notable songs, “Un Dia (One Day)”, a collaboration with Dua Lipa, J. Balvin, and Tainy, mixes English and Spanish. 

The combination of those two languages has created several hits in the past years. “Basically, all of the big Latin crossover records over the past year [2018] either started as core Spanish records that needed an Anglo megastar’s assist or, in the case of Camilla Cabello’s teen-pop-with-salsa-flavoring “Havana,” which reached No. 1 in January, they were J Lo–like English-language records tailored for mainstream pop radio,” writes Slate music critic Chris Molanphy. 

Molanphy writes that one exception is Cardi B’s “I Like It.” Featuring Bad Bunny and J. Balvin, the song reached number 1 on the Billboard Hot 100 in 2018. He argues that, different from Spanish hits that had American singers added to remixes, “I Like It” is inherently Latin at its core and it doesn’t lose those roots to become more “mainstream American pop” like some of its predecessors. 

Many musicians like Selena Gomez and Becky G, who started out as pop English-speaking singers, have now tapped into their roots and started producing Spanish music. Gomez’s 2021 album, Revelación, gave the singer her first ever Grammy nomination. 

“Bad Bunny has opened a door for Latinx musicians, bringing more of the sounds to the surface,” said Mila Miranda, a singer-songwriter whose 2020 album, FAMOSA, has a mix of Spanglish and English songs. She said Bad Bunny has not only normalized the Spanish language, but also Latinx culture. “For example the song “Titi me pregunto”, is a situation we all go through as a culture, nosy family, and it’s fun to see it in a song.” 

Latin music generated $886.1 million in revenue in the US in 2021, a 35.4 percent increase from the previous year. It’s expected for the genre to pass the $1 billion mark by the end of the year and its growth is outpacing that of other U.S. music genres in the market, streaming services playing an integral role in this historic moment. 

The rise in Latin music has happened as the American demographic has changed significantly in the past few years. There are 62 million Latinx in the US, accounting for 19 percent of the population. The group is one of the fastest growing in the country and has increased about 23 percent since 2010. 

The rise of Spanish music has also helped young Spanish Americans feel seen. College student Wendolie Jimenez started investigating the history of popular genres like merengue. “I came to find out that it stemmed from a style rooted in Africa,” she said. She notes the importance of music like Bad Bunny’s gaining popularity, applauding him for the way he was able to open streaming platforms for more Latinx artists. 

The rise of songs in Spanglish and Spanish has attracted fans beyond the Latinx community.  “As I started to listen to more Spanish music, I found Latin beats to be very exciting and almost hypnotizing,” says college student Julia Perkowkski. She is not of Spanish descent, but found an interest in the culture after taking a few classes.  

Before he took a trip to Spain in August, college student Kody Cheung prepared himself by listening to Bad Bunny and Spanish singer Rosalía. “I’ve loved the language from when I first started learning it in sixth grade, but I didn’t really feel like I was connecting to the culture because I kept listening to English speaking artists,” he said.

College student Jimenez says the rise of Spanish and Spanglish in pop charts is having repercussions beyond a particular genre or community.  “It’s not just music to me,” she said. “It represents the spirit and happiness of the entire country.”