Bad Bunny’s Ethnicity and Family Roots
Bad Bunny is a Puerto Rican rapper and singer known for the albums YHLQMDLG, Un Verano Sin Ti and Debí Tirar Más Fotos.
- Nationality
- Puerto Rican and American
- Born
- March 10, 1994, Bayamón, Puerto Rico
- Birth name
- Benito Antonio Martínez Ocasio
Where Bad Bunny’s roots are on the map
What is Bad Bunny’s ethnicity?
Bad Bunny is Puerto Rican on both sides of his family. On his mother’s side he also descends from an Italian immigrant who came to Puerto Rico in the mid-19th century.[1] He was born Benito Antonio Martínez Ocasio in Bayamón in 1994 and grew up in Almirante Sur, a small neighborhood of Vega Baja on the north coast of Puerto Rico.[1][2] His parents are Benito “Tito” Martínez, a truck driver, and Lysaurie Ocasio, a retired schoolteacher.[2][3]
He has told his parents’ story himself, in his song “La Mudanza”. Tito and Lysaurie met while helping a friend move house, married in December 1992 and lived in Morovis, where their first son was conceived, before they settled in Almirante.[1]
Where are Bad Bunny’s parents from?
Father’s side
Grandfather
Grandmother
Father
Benito “Tito” Martínez
Puerto Rican
Mother’s side
Grandfather
Puerto Rican
Grandmother
Puerto Rican
Mother
Lysaurie Ocasio
Puerto RicanItalian
Bad Bunny
Father’s side
Tito Martínez is the oldest of six children and started working as a boy. Like his father and grandfather, he drove trucks for a living, although his dream had been to become an engineer, as his son sings in “La Mudanza”.[1] Bad Bunny has two younger brothers, Bernie and Bysael.[2]
Mother’s side
Lysaurie Ocasio is the youngest of three children. She lost both parents when she was small and grew up with a woman the song calls Doña Juanita. She promised herself to finish her studies before she married, and she kept that promise.[1] As a devout Catholic she took her son to church from an early age, and he sang in the children’s choir until he was 13.[2]
The genealogist Christopher C. Child of American Ancestors traced this side of the family through the Social Security Death Index, the 1950 U.S. census and Puerto Rican civil and church records. Much of the maternal ancestry lies in Morovis, in the mountains of central Puerto Rico, where the family can be followed back to the early 19th century. One of Bad Bunny’s great-great-great-grandfathers, Pascual Ocasio Brilla, came to Puerto Rico from Italy in the mid-19th century. According to Child, the surname Ocasio is a Spanish form of the Italian name Cascio.[1]
In his own words
“My mom is very religious — Catholic — and from a young age they brought me to the church. I’ve always liked to sing, [so] people in the church invited me to be part of the children’s choir.”
“My mami and papi love my music. They’re always listening to the radio waiting for one of my songs to come on.”
“The little boy from Vega Baja, Puerto Rico, the little naive boy that worked at the supermarket, the son of Tito and Lysaurie, that’s the same guy on the cover of Rolling Stone.”
Sources
- American Ancestors, Vita Brevis: Is Cécile Related to Bad Bunny?, by genealogist Christopher C. Child (February 2, 2026)
- The FADER: Cover Story, Bad Bunny (August 28, 2018)
- NBC News: Two Latinas created Rolling Stone’s historic Bad Bunny cover, a first for the magazine (May 15, 2020)
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