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SAO PAULO<\/strong> \u2013 While Bad Bunny<\/a> has dominated global charts, the superstar has not had quite the same success in Brazil<\/a>, a country notoriously hard for foreign stars to win over due to a devotion to national<\/a> artists.<\/p>\n But a shift that began with his Grammy-winning<\/a> album \u201cDeb\u00ed Tirar M\u00e1s Fotos\u201d may accelerate further after his first-ever gigs in Brazil on Friday and Saturday in Sao Paulo. <\/p>\n Bad Bunny has come to Brazil at the peak of his career so far, following the phenomenal hype around his performance at the Super Bowl halftime show<\/a>.<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s the best time to try and unlock a country like Brazil, at a time when he\u2019s managed to dominate practically the entire world,\u201d said Felipe Maia, an ethnomusicologist who is pursuing a doctoral degree on popular music and digital technologies at Paris Nanterre University.<\/p>\n For years, the Puerto Rican artist born Benito Antonio Mart\u00ednez Ocasio has been one of the most-streamed artists on the planet. <\/p>\n But neither the singer, nor his album, nor his songs were among the most played last year in Brazil, according to Spotify. The most streamed artists in the country on the platform in 2025 were all Brazilian.<\/p>\n In the land of samba, funk, bossa nova, choro, sertanejo, forro and pagode, among other Brazilian music genres, 75% of streaming consumption in Brazil focuses on national artists, according to the 2025 midyear music report of Luminate, a company specializing in entertainment industry data. Brazil is the country that most listens to its own music, it said.<\/p>\n Sold-out shows<\/p>\n Still, particularly since \u201cDeb\u00ed Tirar M\u00e1s Fotos,” the fever around Bad Bunny has made headway in Brazil. Only one performance was initially scheduled at the Allianz Parque arena, but it sold out so quickly the artist added an extra date, which also sold out.<\/p>\n By mid-afternoon on Friday, long queues had formed. Brazilian fans mixed with people from El Salvador, Colombia and Venezuela. Many came wearing straw hats \u2014 used by Bad Bunny and traditionally worn by j\u00edbaros, rural Puerto Rican farmers. <\/p>\n Tickets on Ticketmaster, the official vendor, ranged from $50 to $210, but resellers on Friday were selling tickets for that same night for more than $830 \u2014 more than 2.5 times the minimum monthly wage in Brazil.<\/p>\n Fl\u00e1via Durante, a Sao Paulo<\/a> -based DJ who specializes in Latin American music, said that some Brazilians have a tendency to see Spanish-language music as corny due to the association with Mexican telenovelas, but that Bad Bunny pierced a bubble with his latest album.<\/p>\n \u201cNowadays everyone knows all the songs, they sing along and really get into it. I normally play him at the peak of the night. People request him, even at rock or 80s pop themed parties,\u201d Durante said.<\/p>\n Since the half-time Super Bowl show, that popularity has grown. Bad Bunny\u2019s average streams grew by 426% on Spotify in Brazil in the following week compared with the previous one. Many songs experienced massive streaming surges, with \u201cYo Perreo Sola\u201d leading the growth with a 2,536% increase.<\/p>\n \u2018Latino resistance\u2019<\/p>\n During Brazil\u2019s Carnival<\/a> celebrations, Bad Bunny themed costumes were a fixture in Rio\u2019s raucous, dazzling street parties<\/a>.<\/p>\n Nicole Froio, a Colombian Brazilian writer specializing in Latin American cultural issues, went kitted out in a straw hat and plastic, tropical plants that echo the background of his latest album. It was the third Carnival in which Froio \u2014 who has two Bad Bunny tattoos and a third one planned \u2014 wore attire that evoked the Puerto Rican artist.<\/p>\n For a long time, Froio was the sole person among her Brazilian friendship group who liked Bad Bunny. She believes that Brazilians in general have trouble identifying themselves as Latino.<\/p>\n \u201cThere\u2019s a lot of prejudice around Hispanic music and there were preconceptions against him because of his Puerto Rican accent, because people don\u2019t understand him,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n