Bad Bunny Has A Carnal Theory About How Musical Collaboration Is ‘Almost Like Having Sex With Someone’

Bad Bunny is standing alone at the top. The revelatory Puerto Rican superstar became the first-ever artist with an all-Spanish release, Un Verano Sin Ti, atop the year-end Billboard 200 chart. The record-breaking album made more history when the 2023 Grammys nominations were announced last month, as it is the first-ever Spanish-language project to be up for Album Of The Year.

If that weren’t enough, Billboard put Bad Bunny atop its year-end Top Tours chart with a total gross of $373.5 million across his El Ultimo Tour Del Mundo 2022 and World’s Hottest Tour headlining treks. Additionally, he’s the first artist in history to claim two tours with over $100 million earnings within a calendar year.

This morning (December 8), Bad Bunny was yet again alone in the spotlight on the cover of Billboard. The accompanying story contrasted Bad Bunny’s simplistic tour sets — mostly, just him, a beach chair, and a microphone — with the multidimensional team effort behind him since Noah Assad, his manager, signed him in 2016 when Bad Bunny was bagging groceries in his native Puerto Rico.

Bad Bunny can command audiences of thousands by himself, but he values working with others more.

“I’m at a point where, no matter what happens, I’m not looking for anything to happen. For example, I wasn’t looking for a collab with Drake,” Bunny said. “It was very spontaneous. Now it’s different. Now everybody — the biggest artist you can think of — wants to collaborate with me.” When Cobo offered that Bad Bunny is the biggest artist she can think of, he used an interesting analogy to describe how seriously he takes his access to any collaborator he wants.

“And I collaborate with myself,” he continued. “I see collabs in a very different way, as something very special. For me, a collaboration is almost like, I don’t want to sound like an asshole, but it’s almost like having sex with someone. Making a song is a serious matter. You’re saying things, and you’re with someone, and it’s not going to go away. It’s there forever; it’s not like pressing ‘delete’ if you change your mind. At the end of the day, collaborating with Drake, or whoever, is as special as a collab with Buscabulla, or Chencho, or Rauw [Alejandro], or Jhayco. Each has a specific moment and a specific feeling.”

Bunny also shared that he plans to take a break in 2023 “for my physical health, my emotional health to breathe, enjoy my achievements.” We can all agree he’s earned it.

See outtakes from Bad Bunny’s Billboard cover below.