Bad Bunny: Latin star lights up London with history-making stadium show

Bad Bunny brought Latin America to London on Saturday night, as he became the first artist from that part of the world to headline a UK stadium.

The Puerto Rican rapper captivated a star-studded crowd of about 50,000 on the first of two sold-out nights in Tottenham, with a celebration of Central and South American culture, communities – and even the climate.

The fans’ energy levels defied the hot and humid conditions with a fiesta from start to finish.

But as the singer sent a message of solidarity to Venezuela following its devastating earthquakes, it was also an evening of contrasting emotions.

Bad Bunny – whose real name is Benito Antonio Martínez Ocasio – is approaching the end of his Debí Tirar Más Fotos world tour.

And the 32-year-old performed with the low-key confidence and charisma of an artist now completely comfortable on the world’s biggest stages.

The setlist was unsurprisingly dominated by the album that gives the tour its name.

DTMF, as it’s also known, made history at the Grammy Awards in February as the first sung entirely in Spanish to win album of the year.

Starting the show where the record ends, La Mudanza (The Move) set the tone for the evening – showcasing his ability to blur genre boundaries, blending modern Latin rap with old-school salsa, supported by a live traditional band.

But several songs later, it was Nuevayol that really got the party started, as one of the standout singles to help Bad Bunny break through into more mainstream British audiences.

You don’t need to understand the lyrics – or to have grown up with the more native sounds – to be swept up in his universally danceable rhythms, cinematic samples and infectious hooks.

But for those who are invested in the words, DTMF is also a deeply personal record – exploring loss and longing, against a backdrop of nostalgia and identity.

The themes have been brought to visual life on this tour through stunning stadium-scale production, with a Puerto Rican-style home at the back of the stadium floor serving as a second stage.

It gives the show a communal and intimate feel, putting him among the crowd – as though performing at the world’s biggest house party in the local town the design evokes.

Despite the size (and, no doubt, cost) of the spectacle, it has a humble character – favouring homely and traditional imagery, over the high-tech mega-runways of other contemporary stadium shows.

Bad Bunny doesn’t just remember his roots; he puts them front and centre.

And the three-hour performance was a reminder that his global success didn’t happen overnight, with him digging deep into his eight-year discography – traversing trap and reggaeton fusions.

Naturally, this created relative lulls in the set for those newer to the singer and a welcome chance to catch a breath.

And the night’s only anticlimactic moment came with the reveal of the ‘exclusive song’ – a unique track Bad Bunny is adding to the set for each city.

Judging by the slightly muted reaction from the crowd, Cybertruck wasn’t what most were hoping for.

But there were more than enough day-ones and die-hards in the crowd to keep the party going – including thousands from different diasporas.

There were also a couple of celebrities, with Adele spotted in the stands, and – days before Wimbledon – Novak Djokovic introducing a song.

In a stadium partly designed for the purpose of hosting NFL games, the show shared the symbolism of Bad Bunny’s Super Bowl halftime show – widely interpreted as making a political statement, with a celebration of all the Americas united.

Yet he has said this world tour won’t include dates in the US, telling i-D magazine he was worried his fans would be targeted by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officers.

While addressing the London crowd almost entirely in Spanish (after asking for permission at the start), he didn’t make any direct political points – but the tour has been widely interpreted as a promotion of multiculturalism and the preservation of identity.

It’s a message that resonates with his fans.

“We are here, we are Latinos, we are proud,” says 19-year-old Grace from Dartford, who is half-Honduran.

“My culture is getting represented – even if it’s through a Puerto Rican, it felt amazing,” she tells BBC Newsbeat.

Bad Bunny also paid tribute to the people of Venezuela, as the death toll continues to rise in the country following two major earthquakes on Wednesday.

“All Latinos around the world stand in solidarity with you,” he said.

The moment meant a lot to Miguel, 20, who’s from London but has family in Venezuela.

“It’s amazing – with his influence and his power, to shine a light on it – someone’s got to do it,” he says.

Debí Tirar Más Fotos translates to “I should have taken more photos”, with an underlying message of cherishing moments and memories.

Few left the Tottenham Hotspur Stadium with the same regret, if the sea of selfies and phones filming every chorus was anything to go by.

And while Bad Bunny is the first Latin artist to headline a UK stadium, he won’t be the last – with Colombian singer Karol G set to play the same venue next summer.

The language barrier remains a hurdle for many, but with artists such as Rosalía also selling out arenas, is there a ceiling to the rise of Spanish-language music in the UK?

For Grace, “there are still so many ‘metas’ – or goals – it can hit”.

“I feel like it’s just the beginning.”

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