On December 24th, the Latin trap sensation, Bad Bunny, released his first ever album titled “X100PRE”, taking supporters by surprise since he posted no teasers or announcements until the night before the actual release. After just a day, it reached No. 1 on Billboard’s Top Latin Albums chart and hasn’t moved for the first week of 2019. Fans of Bunny have already designed their own X100PRE merchandise on websites like RedBubble to wear at his upcoming shows in support of the artist and his new endeavors.

As a whole, the album has quite a melting pot sound, bringing in many different elements of music that the 24 year-old star has never experimented with before. His track titled “Tenemos Que Hablar” is a full on pop-punk vibe, using synths and an upbeat guitar riff that plays throughout the song. Which is extremely off-kilter from the rapper’s previous singles, leaving a lot of his fans in awe. The credible pop music critic at Washington Post, Chris Richards, even said, “Because unlike Drake, Bad Bunny isn’t one of those careerist chameleons, changing his moods or his manicures to match the nearest accent wall. He’s got a much cooler thing going. The world changes color around him,” regarding the artist’s attitude and diverse array of songs on the album. Bad Bunny even dabbled in layering different people’s voices in some of his songs in order to add more depth to the message. In the song titled, “¿Quién Tú Eres?” it goes from a booming trap sound to a suddenly quiet background track while a strong voice is speaking over it, not singing or rapping. All of these changes from his usual musical style were received well by most people, seeing as the rapper has been in the positive spotlight of social media with messages from loving fans and posts from other artist’s in support of the debut album.

X100PRE has also gained tons of attention from American consumers, keeping his reputation alive as one of the most popular crossover artists. His album is being streamed on Spotify, Apple Music, and many other music programs. Furthermore, hard copies of the album will soon be sold in stores all around the U.S. in CD version and even vinyl. According to NowThis News, “Latin music is now the 5th most popular music genre in the U.S., surpassing country and EDM. BuzzAngle attributes the rise in popularity to artists like Bad Bunny, J Balvin, Luis Fonsi, and Ozuna.” Many radio stations even started playing Bad Bunny’s music in 2018 as he became more popular with his collaborations with the famous American artists, Cardi B and Drake. In fact, he is touring this year all across the country, including Connecticut.