Kanye West Admitted Bad Bunny Is His Biggest Competition Right Now
For nearly two decades, Grammy-winning rapper Kanye West has released some of hip-hop’s biggest songs and earned the respect of many of his peers in the industry. Throughout his time in the spotlight, Ye has seen the rise of several other rappers, including Puerto Rican reggaeton star Bad Bunny.
Kanye West has been a hit-making rapper for nearly 2 decades
Kanye West first started working as a producer for the likes of Jay-Z before he became a rapper in his own right with his 2004 debut album The College Dropout. He earned a No. 1 hit on the Billboard Hot 100 chart with “Gold Digger,” his Jamie Foxx collab from his sophomore album Late Registration. He continued to release smash albums throughout the 2000s including Graduation, 808s & Heartbreak, and 2010’s My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy, regarded by many to be his magnum opus.
West continued to release music throughout the 2010s with albums like Yeezus, The Life of Pablo, and Ye. He released the albums Donda and Donda 2 in 2021 and 2022, respectively, and in more recent days has been known for his outlandish statements.
Kanye West admitted Bad Bunny is his biggest competition right now
Having seen the rise (and fall) of many rappers, West is always trying to keep up with the newest competition. In his infamous October 2022 Drink Champs interview, he delved in to who keeps him moving when he’s working on music.
“Right now, when me and James Blake and No I.D. are in the studio working on our album, who do you think we be bringing up when we talking about songs? Stadium artists? Who do you think we bring up? And we ain’t got no problem; it’s no beef, it’s no problem, it’s just, ‘Yo, we competing,'” West asked the hosts. He kept emphasizing that the artist in question performed in stadiums, signifying a larger-than-life star status.
“Bad Bunny!” West finally admitted. “That’s who’s on our wall. That’s who’s on our wall when we make music. We loading up [his] concert footage.”
Bad Bunny’s rise to stardom
Bad Bunny rose to prominence in the late 2010s after achieving fame in his native Puerto Rico, earning a No. 1 hit on the Billboard Hot 100 with his Cardi B collab “I Like It.” He became a household name in 2020 after performing alongside Shakira at the Super Bowl LIV halftime show and releasing his breakout sophomore album YHLQMDLG a few weeks later. He released two more albums in 2020, Las Que No Iban a Salir and El Último Tour del Mundo. In 2022, he set new records on the Billboard charts with his album Un Verano Sin Ti.
Bad Bunny reflected on his rise to stardom in a 2022 interview with GQ.
“It’s like I was in a coma,” he said of his sudden success. “As if, suddenly, two years of my life went by in a week, because of this sudden boom.”
“I still work every day now, but during that time it was really weird,” he added. “It was as if they had taken an animal from the jungle to the zoo. I was in the zoo for two years doing the same thing I did in the jungle, only I wasn’t in the jungle.”
