Bad Bunny on Sex, Social Media, and Kendall Jenner

It’s 10 minutes past noon in the historic San Juan neighborhood of Miramar, and Benito Antonio Martínez Ocasio is hiding just out of sight, in a coral-colored speakeasy behind a ghost kitchen on a street that snakes to the beach. The chameleonic reggaeton supernova known as Bad Bunny is sitting at a corner table before an ever-growing feast of garlic knots and meatballs and two untouched pizzas, one pepperoni, one Hawaiian. For once, he’s doing nada, the 29-year-old tells me in his blithe baritone. “It’s been my quietest day, with nothing to do.” This latest trip home came on a whim. “Summer came, a couple of great reggaeton songs came out, and I said, ‘I’m off. I’m going to Puerto Rico—like a vagabond.’” Martínez had declared a year of rest after cementing himself as one of the most thrillingly prolific artists working today, a powerhouse whose superlatives include a Grammy album of the year nomination, more Spotify streams in 2022 than Beyoncé or Taylor, and the launch of the highest-grossing tour ever by a Latin artist, El Último Tour del Mundo (in support of two of the three albums he’d released in 2020 while the rest of us were dabbling in tie-dye). After the final stop, Martínez dropped another album: the culture-cracking critical obsession Un Verano Sin Ti, a sex-drenched beach party with a streak of political resistance. Then, he embarked on a second 2022 tour, The World’s Hottest, shattering Ed Sheeran’s record for highest grossing (though Taylor and Beyoncé may beat them both this year). Then he headlined Coachella—the first Latin artist ever. Somewhere in all this, there’s Kendall Jenner. And now an album this fall, about which Martínez—a master of surprise reveals—is insistently coy (as is his publicist). Said album is the subtext of our interview, but the performer, who’s been more likely to midnight-release on Thanksgiving or plant curiosity seeds via a fake Bugatti ad, is still reticent about confirming its existence. When I congratulate him on the forthcoming record, he deadpans: “Who told you that?” In Puerto Rico and Los Angeles, he’s been experimenting with a new musical mood. “I am playing around and enjoying myself, letting go. I’m being inspired a lot by the music of the ’70s”—across genres, in both Spanish and English—“but I’m not sure if this is going to shape my music, generally or just one song