Bad Bunny has chosen none other than Noche Buena to present us with his biggest blessing to date – his long-awaited debut album. The Puerto Rican rapper’s first full-length project, titled X100pre, is finally available to stream in full.
Benito Antonio Martínez Ocasio has been teasing his first album for several months. The Puerto Rican rapper debuted in 2016 with “Diles,” and catapulted his career to the mainstream with a series of high-impact features, but his own full-length album seemed elusive until now. As he told Billboard, “I feel these past two years I’ve done as much as I could according to what the business required. I have other goals, another vision. [Now] I have the space and liberty to create.”
Now his first official album is arriving to cap off a banner year. In 2018, El Conejo Malo released some of his most successful singles to date, including “Estamos Bien.” He also collected a series of high-profile collaborations, like Cardi B’s unstoppable “I Like It” (along with J Balvin, with whom he has been teasing a soon-to-be-released collaborative project), his own single “Mia” featuring Drake singing in Spanish, and Jennifer López’s “Te Gusté.” BB has also made headlines by criticizing Puerto Rico’s failing education system and remembering the victims of Hurricane María during his performance on The Tonight Show With Jimmy Fallon. Also, who could forget the nail salon debacle?
On Sunday, December 23, Bad Bunny dropped several previews to tease the album. In the morning, he tweeted the number of tracks on the project, referring to all of them as “PALO ?.” On Instagram, he posted a short animated video of an eye emoji with a snippet of ambient music, then finally surprised everyone by posting the album art and final title (the project had previously been called La Nueva Religión).
X100pre features 15 songs, including the previously released “Estamos Bien,” “Solo de Mi” and “Mia.” The list of guest features is minimal, but includes Dominican dembowsero El Alfa, producer Diplo, and Drake on “Mia.” The album also includes production credits from reggaeton OG Tainy. Dropping the album at the beginning of Christmas week guarantees X100pre will perform well on the Billboard charts, but it remains to be seen if it makes the no. 1 spot. Regardless, this album is sure to give us plenty to talk about at Christmas dinner.
Stream Bad Bunny’s X100pre via Spotify or Apple Music below: