We’re barely into November and it’s already calendar-year awards time. Apple Music is stealing a march on its rivals by announcing that Bad Bunny is its artist of the year for 2022.
This isn’t an award based purely on stream counts though. Apple says that it’s as much about “artistic excellence and influence on global culture”.
Bad Bunny (aka Benito Martinez Ocasio) released his latest album ‘Un Verano Sin Ti’ in May, and it has since become Apple Music’s most-streamed album of the year, and its most-streamed Latin album ever.
The award announcement is accompanied by a day of Bad Bunny programming on the Apple Music 1 radio station, as well as a takeover of the service’s ‘La Fórmula’ playlist.
Apple Music also noted that Bad Bunny is the most streamed Latin artist of all time on its service, and that he holds the first, second and third biggest first-day stream totals for a Latin artist.
There are also reminders of Apple Music’s early backing for Ocasio, choosing him as its first Latin ‘Up Next’ artist early in 2018, shortly after he had hosted the first six episodes of its ‘Trap Kingz’ Spanish-language radio show in 2017.
Outside Apple Music, Bad Bunny also broke Drake’s record for daily Spotify streams in May, racking up 183m plays on the day ‘Un Verano Sin Ti’ was released.
His track ‘Tití Me Preguntó’ was the biggest song globally on YouTube this summer, while Bad Bunny has also been cited as a key factor in the rapid growth of Latin streams in the US this year.
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