Pop critic says Bad Bunny embodies global shift in music

Jon Caramanica, The New York Times pop critic, said ahead of the Grammys on Sunday that he feels “this should be Bad Bunny’s year,” noting the artist is Puerto Rican, sings and raps almost entirely in Spanish, is nominated in the biggest categories and is set to headline the Super Bowl a week later.

Caramanica told the paper that Bad Bunny’s rise came at the confluence of two forces: the internet as a distribution platform and streaming’s ability to link language communities. The article notes Bad Bunny is the most-streamed artist on the planet and compares his timing to acts like BTS and the global spread of K-pop.

He also highlighted social media’s role in shaping pop today, saying that platforms such as TikTok have become a standard proving ground; the Best New Artist nominees include figures who started on social media or received big boosts there, including Addison Rae, Katseye and Sombr.

On artificial intelligence, Caramanica said A.I. is already present in music in small, functional ways—lyric suggestions, backing vocals, a “fake choir”—and that near-term uses will likely be as studio scaffolding rather than wholly generative art. He added that A.I. might become better at making music “right” but not at making it “wrong,” and that being wrong is where innovation often occurs.

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