From Vega Baja to the Super Bowl: Bad Bunny Reflects on His Childhood Following Halftime Triumphs
By Alexander Ross
Benito’s voice was trained on hymns. Encouraged by his mother, a devout Catholic, he joined the local church choir at age five and sang there until he was 13. The choir provided rigorous, early ear training. It taught him breath control, vocal harmonies, and how to hold dynamic tension across a melody. When his voice deepened during puberty, he walked away from the choir loft, but the melodic instincts stayed embedded in his delivery.
Inside the Martínez household, musical education was wide and uncurated. Lysaurie played classic tropical music while cooking and cleaning on weekends. Benito soaked up the arrangements of Puerto Rican salsa titans like Héctor Lavoe, Ismael Rivera, and El Gran Combo. Those records taught him how narrative storytelling could ride comfortably over complex, danceable rhythms.
Outside the house, he soaked up the sound spilling out of passing cars. His father loved commercial merengue, but Benito discovered the first wave of underground reggaeton on his own. He saved allowance money to buy mixtapes by Daddy Yankee, Don Omar, and Tego Calderón. Calderón, in particular, became Benito’s artistic north star. Tego spoke with unapologetic Afro-Puerto Rican slang, avoided code-switching, and wrote poetry about ordinary street life. Benito took mental notes: authenticity did not require dilution.
Alexander Ross has covered the video game industry for a decade, writing deep dives on game design, esports tournaments, VR developments, and gaming culture.
