Bad Bunny infuses it with electrifying beat switches, raunchy raps and astral synths.

“Un Verano Sin Ti” is a pop album, but not necessarily a straightforward one. The majority of the album was recorded there and in the Dominican Republic. For “Un Verano Sin Ti,” he decided to explore the eastern side, near Río Grande and Fajardo. “When I was a little kid, my family would go to the West on vacation,” he said, referring to the coast of Puerto Rico. He approached “Un Verano Sin Ti” with a bit of a lighter touch: “It’s a record to play in the summer, on the beach, as a playlist.” He drew on both recent experiences and nostalgia for dog days of the past. And I was putting the whole world onto underground from Puerto Rico, you know? That makes me feel proud of what I represent.” “I could have done a track with, who knows, Miley Cyrus or Katy Perry,” he explained, referring to his first 2020 album, “YHLQMDLG.” “But no, I was making ‘Safaera’ with Ñengo Flow and Jowell y Randy. His right thigh bore only one design: the logo for Pokémon Go. His left thigh was covered in tattoos, including the sad-faced cartoon heart that appears on the artwork for his new album, and an outline of his home, Puerto Rico. At Electric Lady, calmly putting the final touches on the album and working on some new material, he sported a quintessentially Benito look: pastel pink swim trunks, a checkered blue cardigan and a wide-brimmed sage fisherman’s hat. Throughout it all, he was preparing for the release of his fourth studio album, “Un Verano Sin Ti” (“A Summer Without You”), which dropped on Friday.Īt the gala on Monday, Bad Bunny - born Benito Antonio Martínez Ocasio - wore a custom cream boiler suit and skirt with puff sleeves, designed by Riccardo Tisci for Burberry. Two days after that, he was filming music videos in Puerto Rico. Last Monday, he announced his casting as the lead of a live-action Marvel movie, playing a character from the Spider-Man universe named El Muerto. “I know that day is going to be an exciting thing,” he continued. “Obviously I’m happy that they invited me,” he said, twirling from side to side in a high leather swivel chair at New York’s venerated Electric Lady Studios about 48 hours before the exclusive fashion fête. But for Bad Bunny, one of music’s most idiosyncratic figures, it’s just another Monday night. Most pop stars would move heaven and earth to attend the Met Gala.

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