Dangerous Bunny’s momentum is reaching a fever pitch. Recent off a historic evening on the Grammys, the trailblazing Puerto Rican rapper, singer, and songwriter is now set to take America’s greatest stage on the Tremendous Bowl, solidifying a decade-long ascent that has redefined the American music trade.
In simply ten years, Dangerous Bunny, whose actual identify is Benito Antonio Martínez Ocasio, reworked from a SoundCloud rapper to a six-time Grammy winner, changing into the primary Latin and Spanish-speaking artist to win album of the yr. On his street to the Tremendous Bowl, the artist has made a record-breaking impression on the U.S. economic system.
Since 2018, the artist has launched into six live performance excursions. His newest tour, No Me Quiero Ir de Aquí—“I don’t want to leave here” in English—hosted on the José Miguel Agrelot Coliseum in San Juan (recognized regionally as “El Choli”), generated an estimated $400 million from 31 live shows, in accordance with Wells Fargo. Past ticket gross sales, the 600,000 attendees the residency introduced in generated an estimated $733 million for Puerto Rico, in accordance with the Related Press. The artist’s earlier live shows additionally netted excessive sums. His World’s Hottest Tour grew to become the highest-grossing tour in a calendar yr, bringing in additional than $435 million throughout 81 exhibits and 1.9 million ticket gross sales (though Taylor Swift shattered that report the next yr by practically $600 million).
Dangerous Bunny has additionally repeatedly topped Spotify’s charts because the most-streamed artist globally, most lately successful the title in 2025 with practically 20 billion streams.
This won’t be the singer’s first look on the Tremendous Bowl. In 2020, the Puerto Rican native carried out with Shakira and Jennifer Lopez. However since then, the artist has reworked himself from a that includes artist into a global phenomenon reportedly price $100 million.
From SoundCloud to the Tremendous Bowl
Born in Bayamón, Puerto Rico, a municipality within the outskirts of San Juan, Dangerous Bunny was raised in a lower-middle class family. His father was a truck driver and his mom was an English instructor. The singer labored at a grocery retailer throughout school. In his off time, he uploaded songs he made on his personal to SoundCloud, the world’s greatest audio platform. In 2016, his music “Dile” earned a couple of million streams. The then 22-year-old singer quickly had producers blowing up his cellphone.
Dangerous Bunny’s path from SoundCloud artist to a worldwide platform was accelerated by strategic collaborations and a cultural setting ripe for Latino artists. The artist broke by to a mainstream American viewers by way of collaborations with artists like Cardi B and Drake. These partnerships had been a commerce off for each Dangerous Bunny and the American artists, in accordance with cultural historian Jared Bahir Browsh.
“They’re internationalizing their fan base while he’s gaining a footing in English-speaking countries through those collaborations,” Browsh advised Fortune.
Leveraging worldwide stardom for market growth
The choice to have Dangerous Bunny carry out at this yr’s halftime present was a calculated transfer by the NFL and Roc Nation—Jay-Z’s leisure firm that has overseen the halftime present since 2019—to capitalize on the artist’s worldwide attraction. Worldwide audiences compose a big share of the NFL’s viewership. In a dialog with ESPN final November, Marissa Solis, the NFL’s senior vice chairman of world model and client advertising, stated the U.S. Latino inhabitants was a “critical growth area.”
Browsh refutes the concept the NFL selected Dangerous Bunny as a political stunt. The artist sparked controversy final yr for refusing to tour within the U.S. due to ICE considerations, inflicting outrage amongst critics and galvanizing the creation of a derivative halftime present hosted by Turning Level USA, the conservative nonprofit based by Charlie Kirk. As a substitute, Browsh stated the NFL and Roc Nation’s selecting Dangerous Bunny was purely a enterprise choice.
“He’s coming off a huge tour and he’s coming off being the top artist in terms of streaming and record sales last year,” Browsh stated.
Latinos each at dwelling and overseas are the NFL’s fastest-growing fanbase. And about one-third of the NFL’s followers are from outdoors of the U.S., in accordance with Nielsen. The NFL is leaning into their fanbase’s shifting demographic, launching a worldwide partnerships program in 2022 to increase its worldwide attain.
“It’s a business and so there’s always a tradeoff,” Browsh stated of Dangerous Bunny’s halftime efficiency. “He gets the visibility of the largest sporting event in the U.S. and they get access to those new markets.”
