Analyzing the collaborations in Bad Bunny’s repertoire, it’s hard to pick a handful of favorites. Despite that his career is only about five years long at this point, Benito has been consistently prolific—which means there are, like, hundreds of songs in his overall catalog. And a good chunk of those include features or, like in some of the tracks we’ve listed below, he’s the invited guest.
For that reason, we didn’t include live-show, one-off collabs, like the Super Bowl LIV halftime show with Shakira and J Lo. We’d like to note, though, that bringing in Puerto Rican group Las Atípicas, an all-woman Puerto Rican band, to craft a folkloric version of “Si Veo a Tu Mamá” at his recent Latin Grammys performance is a highlight that should most definitely be released as a single…with a video. Please.
Onto the rankings: We’ve factored more than just a song’s chart success into our picks, of course. Track impact from many angles–career, social, cultural, our feels–was considered when compiling this collection. It is numbered specifically, not randomly–and yes, it’s a totally biased list.
"La Romana" - Bad Bunny featuring El Alfa
The whole track is more than five minutes long, and it’s not until halfway into things that Dominican dembow star El Alfa a.k.a El Jefe comes in. Botando fuego in his signature, subtly nasal vocals, the whole mood shifts, standing in stark contrast to the tempo and style of the two-plus minutes that preceded it. Somehow, though, the mash-up works–so well, in fact, that it’s hard to say which part is better than the other. Good thing we don’t have to choose.
"Vuelve" - Daddy Yankee and Bad Bunny
Released amid the 2017 onslaught of singles, this mopey ballad managed to stand out, universally pulling at the heartstrings–as any slowed-down reggaeton breakup song worth its salt does. That the track belongs also to the reigning king of reggaeton, Daddy Yankee, obviously helped.
“Vuelve” hits an especially tragic sentiment, though: For its narrator, living without his former love is unbearable. But even the idea of passing on presents its problems: “I’m afraid of dying and being reincarnated, for fear you won’t be there,” Bad Bunny croons at its start.
"Ignorantes" - Bad Bunny featuring Sech
With the release of his debut LP, a handful of high-profile collabs and a Latin Grammy win for “Otro Trago,” Panamanian singer Sech was well-established already when he paired up with Bad Bunny. By teaming with Benito, though, he undoubtedly stretched his fanbase even further.
The song itself is solid; an undeniably catchy ballad in typical Sad Bunny fashion. But have you seen the video? Showcasing a variety of relationships, including queer romances, is major. Together, Bad Bunny and Sech remind listeners that their music is made for and relevant to folks of all sexual orientations. Of course, this level of inclusivity should be a given, but when it comes to many mainstream artists, Latinx or otherwise, we all know it often isn’t.
“Yo Perreo Sola Remix” - Bad Bunny x Nesi x Ivy Queen
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DUWIRywd-7s
The first edition of this one, especially for femme fans of Bad Bunny, is an anthem of independent badassery on par with Ivy Queen’s pioneering “Yo Quiero Bailar,” so naturally, it made 100% sense for La Caballota to steal the show on the second edit of the song, which again features Puerto Rican singer Nesi.
Of course, the video for the first take is iconic: Bad Bunny punts masculine stereotypes and apepars in high-femme drag, hello. In it he paid tribute to Alexis Negrón, a Puerto Rican trans woman whose murder—which remains tragically unsolved, by the way—in Puerto Rico early this year rocked the LGBTQIA+ community and beyond. He addressed femicides, which are particularly high on the island, in general, with background neons reading “Ni Una Menos (a direct reference to the anti-femicide movement) and “Las Mujeres Mandan.” And through this clip is how most discovered that, for his X100PRE tour and this video (and others), a trans woman named Kendra Mart has been at the helm of Bad Bunny’s choreography.
It’s perfect, right? Nope. A nagging issue remained: up-and-comer Nesi was not plainly credited on the album version as a performer. Failing to credit women artists critical to reggaetón songs is one of the genre’s longest-running misogynist practices. Oversight or legal technically or whatever the reason may have been, this misstep was a mighty transgression that contradicts the message of the whole song.
On this remix, released as a surprise (Bad Bunny really loves to surprise us) with a live performance at the Billboard Music Awards in October 2020, Benito gave Nesi her due. He went a bit further even, in calling on the legendary Ivy Queen; she was, after all, the trailblazing artist who first demanded the right to perrear sola.
"Te Boté" - Nío Garcia, Darrel, and Casper Mágico featuring Bad Bunny, Nicky Jam and Ozuna
A post-breakup, better-off-without-you hymn that spent more than two whole years on the charts, this one. To describe the Nío Garcia, Darrel and Casper Mágico’s “Te Boté (Remix)” featuring Bad Bunny, Nicky Jam and Ozuna as having been omnipresent in Latinx spaces, from radio to clubs to your local panadería, for an impressive stretch of time seems an understatement. Its far-reaching success undoubtedly helped push Latinx music further out of the capricious confines set by the U.S. music industry.
And the 2018 song is a new classic that still gets play today, and will for decades–or forever, maybe. The staying power of this perfectly crafted relationship peace-out is undeniable.
"Krippy Kush" - Farruko, Bad Bunny, Rvssian
You couldn’t go far in the fall and winter of 2017 in San Juan without hearing the ringing, high-register “kush! Kush! Kush! Kush!” of this trap hit. But if you didn’t see the credits, you might assume it was Bad Bunny’s song, rather than Farruko’s, because the fellow Puerto Rican singer’s bit is a perfectly great auto-tuned sung-and-rapped refrain, but a limited one. The sticky-icky chorus is centerstage–so fun and bouncy you convince yourself las putas is certainly a term of endearment here–and it’s Bad Bunny who delivers it most often.
There’s another collab connected to this one: A remix with Nicki Minaj featuring Travis Scott. It didn’t catch on the way its predecessor did, though. While Scott’s addition is especially solid, there’s something about the simpler, less crowded original that people liked better, apparently: The original video has about seven times as many views–more than 7 million–than the remix.
"Safaera" - Bad Bunny x Jowell y Randy x Ñengo Flow
Another instant classic, “Safaera” is an epic tribute to reggaetón, molded from its history, delivered in large part by three of the genre’s greats and, with all its tempo-switching and style shifts, matches perfectly our collectively short attention spans. YHLQMDLG is an absolutely brilliant album, start to finish—that this track stands out so strongly says a lot.
"MIA" - Bad Bunny featuring Drake
Drake’s fans who weren’t also stanning Bad Bunny already started to with this hit—and, because Drake sings in Spanish here, some chipping away at the arbitrary “language barrier” that often prevents English-only listeners from giving Latinx artists a shot.
It wasn’t Drake’s first time cantando en español, and the Dominican Drake persona was long established by Latinx media by the time “MIA” was released. Still, like the collab with Cardi, this track helped bridge the mainstream’s mental gap between English hip-hop and trap its Spanish-language counterparts (with a side of reggaetón).
"La Canción" - Bad Bunny and J Balvin
Timeless and universally heart-wrenching, “La Canción” is also pretty meta. Benito and Balvin, teaming up for their joint EP Oasis, dropped in 2019 at the perceived height of their close friendship. tell a forlorn story about the lingering memories of a former love. But how many times have we listened to it? Enough to create a new memory that reminds us of our own personal memory recalled by the ballad, with a pace matching a human pulse and velvety trumpet accents.
Yes, it charted well–very well, in fact, and with good reason. But beyond that, “La Canción” is so simple yet wholly unforgettable, it’s deserving of admission into the canon of greatest heartbreak songs of all time.
"I Like It" - Cardi B featuring Bad Bunny, J Balvin
On ubiquity alone this fresh rework of the eponymous boogaloo classic must be included here, having lasted nearly a year on the charts after its release in 2018. But “I Like It” brought with it a slew of other unforgettable moments: For one, we got a music video celebrating Latinx culture—one where Afro-Latinx people and culture are centered—embraced by more than 1 billion people to date. Then there’s the now-legendary 2018 American Music Awards performance that got the entire audience dancing along with the veritable party happening onstage.
Gracias a Cardi B, more folks–people who maybe didn’t have Latinx music on their radar—got to know both Bad Bunny and J Balvin, and existing fans got their much-deserved I-told-you-so bragging rites.