In Tampa, Bad Bunny’s literally explosive concert doubled as a rodeo: review

TAMPA — Bad Bunny is the god of Latin trap music and reggaeton. He’s a movie star, a high-flying WWE fighter, a fan of Rays outfielder Randy Arozarena and the on-and-off-again boyfriend of Kendall Jenner.

On Tuesday night inside Amalie Arena, he became an outlaw.

During his Tampa stop of the Most Wanted Tour, Bad Bunny cranked his yeehaw dial up to 10. He sang about drinking and having sex and spending money underneath a cascade of neon cacti and lassos. His dancers backflipped in vests and chaps. At one point, a video on screen showed Bad Bunny galloping through the desert as a lone cowboy. Then the rapper emerged from a tunnel, clopping in atop a live horse.

Across two stages, a floating walkway and five acts, Bad Bunny showed Tampa just how far he’d come from his humble beginnings in Vega Baja. The nearly 2½-hour show featured all of the singer’s favorite topics: his growing wealth, his fascination with carnal pleasures, his Puerto Rican pride.

The Latin superstar, born Benito Antonio Martínez Ocasio, has had a busy five years since his last performance at Amalie Arena. His 2020 record, “El Último Tour del Mundo,” became the first all-Spanish album to reign supreme on the Billboard 200. He obliterated streaming records worldwide, scooping up Apple Music’s Artist of the Year title in 2022 and claiming seven trophies across the Grammys and Latin Grammys.

Tuesday’s Bad Bunny concert was a seismic event. The bass drum alone rumbled so deep you could feel it in your throat. There were lasers and explosions, fireballs and pillars of smoke, sometimes all shooting off at once. Piercing above all else: the screams. Have you ever heard the feral howls of 20,000 people all about to lose their voice for the rest of the week? It makes a stadium of Swifties sound like church mice.

Many fans came prepared for a rodeo, rocking fringe on everything and belt buckles as big as Texas. Outside the venue, unofficial vendors hawked towers of cowboy hats. Inside, Amalie Arena staff distributed light-up cowboy boot necklaces that flashed in sync with the music — a free souvenir for those who didn’t feel like shelling out $160 for the Bad Bunny Adidas sneakers at the merch table.

Despite the party atmosphere, Benito started the show looking crushed under the weight of his stardom. He popped up from a trapdoor after three instrumental songs from a live orchestra. A black hood remained low over his eyes as he rapped the opening bars of “Nadie Sabe.”

“Pero nadie sabe, no, lo que se siente,” he lamented. “Sentirse solo con cien mil pеrsona’ al frente.”

In English: Nobody knows what it feels like, alone with a hundred thousand people in front.

While the bulk of the audience ranged from teens to millennials, this reporter sat behind a dancing grandmother and in front of a child waving a sign that said, “This is my 11th birthday.” Fans of all ages seemed to know every word, from the radio hits like “Yo Perreo Sola” to the slower ballads that Bad Bunny sang perched on a grand piano. You didn’t need to understand Spanish to move your hips along to the slick trap beats. It just happened.

Much of Bad Bunny’s performance took place from behind his hood, a Spiderman-like mask or a pair of giant Prada sunglasses. But sometimes he did let fans see his face — and his feelings.

“Thanks for making my day,” he said in Spanish. “I’ve been to Tampa many times over the years. But like I’ve said in other cities, no matter how many times I’ve been here, how many stadiums, arenas, large concerts, tours, it’s always f—king emotional to see so many beautiful people here to see you, to sing with you, to dance with you.”

Every few songs, he stopped rapping to stare into the audience. Each time, the crowd stepped in filled the silence:

“BE-NI-TO! BE-NI-TO!”

— Times staffer Martha Asencio-Rhine contributed to this report.

Correction: Bad Bunny played Amalie Arena on Tuesday night. Photo captions in a previous version of this story named the wrong venue.