Ramtin Arablui

Underground music, as it was called, stemmed from that sort of reaction to the violence of the state.

Underground Puerto Rican rap and reggae, reggaeton and later trap, were fast becoming the island's soundtrack.

And the kid who would become Bad Bunny was all ears.

By the time Bad Bunny was coming up as a child, reggaeton had kind of survived a major governmental crackdown and censorship program to triumph as the popular music of all young people in Puerto Rico.

His mom wasn't crazy about him listening to reggaeton, but she would let him play.

Like he remembers driving to school in the morning and hearing Dego Calderon's Pa' Que Reto Sing on the radio and wanting to get in right on time because they would play it at the same time every day.

The song is a hedonistic anthem that's hard to translate because there's no perfect English word for retozen.

Karina says it's sort of like for your pleasure so you can get down.

And it was his jam.

So Benito is coming of age in the heyday of 2000s reggaeton, getting this amazing sort of musical education from artists across Puerto Rico.

Artists like Dego Calderon, who made dance tracks with the express purpose of centering Black Puerto Ricans.

And so the message Benito is getting is about like being yourself, like owning who you are, not being afraid to be out there.

He got so inspired that he decides to drop out of college, starts working at a grocery store and at home in his room.

He's making beats.

He came up as a rapper through SoundCloud, just like posting music, which allows, you know, musicians to post music for free.

And that's how Bad Bunny is born.

He picks his name based on an old photo of himself dressed as a bunny and keeps it until he is discovered off of SoundCloud and eventually gets his first big hit in Puerto Rico.

The song, Soy Peor.

Told you we'd hear it again.

Soy peor is about how after a breakup, the singer Bad Bunny is even more badly behaved, neurotic.