In January 2016, Benito Antonio Martínez Ocasio was a college student bagging groceries at a supermarket in Vega Baja, Puerto Rico. Between shifts, he uploaded his songs to SoundCloud and hoped someone would listen. By December 2020, Spotify had named him its most-streamed artist on the planet. You know him as Bad Bunny.
That jump, from the checkout line to the top of the world’s biggest streaming platform, took less than five years.
Key facts
- Who: Bad Bunny (Benito Antonio Martínez Ocasio), raised in Vega Baja, Puerto Rico
- Before the fame: grocery bagger and student at the University of Puerto Rico at Arecibo
- The breakout: “Diles,” uploaded to SoundCloud on January 25, 2016
- The record: Spotify’s top global artist in 2020, 2021, 2022 and 2025, the first artist to hold the title four times
- 2026: Album of the Year at the Grammys and the Super Bowl LX halftime show
The song he uploaded between shifts
“Diles” was not a studio single with a label behind it. Bad Bunny released it on SoundCloud on January 25, 2016 as an independent artist, while he was still studying audiovisual communication and working at the supermarket.
The track reached Puerto Rican producer DJ Luian, who signed him to his label, Hear This Music, that same year. By August 2016, “Diles” had a remix with Ozuna, Farruko, Arcángel and Ñengo Flow. For a kid from Vega Baja, that was the big leagues.
Then came “Soy peor,” the song that made him famous almost overnight.
How fast did Bad Bunny go from grocery bagger to Spotify’s No. 1?
Bad Bunny went from uploading “Diles” to SoundCloud in January 2016 to being named Spotify’s most-streamed artist worldwide in December 2020, a gap of under five years. According to Spotify’s 2020 Wrapped, he finished that year with more than 8.3 billion streams, ahead of Drake and J Balvin.
And he didn’t stop there:
| Year | What happened |
|---|---|
| 2016 | Uploads “Diles” to SoundCloud and signs with Hear This Music |
| 2020 | Spotify’s top global artist, with more than 8.3 billion streams; YHLQMDLG is the most-streamed album |
| 2021 | Top global artist on Spotify for the second year in a row |
| 2022 | Third straight year at No. 1, with more than 18.5 billion streams |
| 2025 | No. 1 for a fourth time, with 19.8 billion streams |
| 2026 | Grammy for Album of the Year and the Super Bowl LX halftime show |
When Spotify announced its 2025 Wrapped, it confirmed that Bad Bunny is the first artist ever to be its Global Top Artist four times. His album DeBÍ TiRAR MáS FOToS was also the most-streamed album of 2025.
He never switched to English to get there
Here’s the part that hits different if you grew up between two languages.
Bad Bunny didn’t cross over by changing who he was. He got to No. 1 singing in Spanish, with Puerto Rican slang, about Puerto Rico. On February 1, 2026, DeBÍ TiRAR MáS FOToS became the first Spanish-language album to win Album of the Year at the Grammys, according to the Associated Press. In his acceptance speech, he dedicated the award to people who left their homeland to chase their dreams.
If you’ve ever worked a first job at a supermarket, a restaurant or the family business while chasing something bigger after hours, this story is yours too. ¡Qué orgullo!
From Vega Baja to Levi’s Stadium
One week after the Grammys, on February 8, 2026, Bad Bunny headlined the Super Bowl LX halftime show at Levi’s Stadium in Santa Clara, California. He was the first solo male Latin artist to lead the show.
According to Guinness World Records, that made him the first musician since Tony Bennett in 1994 to win Album of the Year and headline the halftime show in the same year.
Ten years earlier, he was bagging groceries and uploading songs no label had paid for.
So next time you’re stuck on a long shift dreaming about something bigger, remember Benito: the guy at the end of the checkout line became the most-streamed artist in the world. ¡Wepa!
