Grand Theft Auto radio stations tend to be built the same way: a format, a host or two, and a playlist that has to survive hundreds of hours of driving. Cocoteo FM, the modern Latin station in Grand Theft Auto VI, takes that blueprint and fills it with bachata, merengue, dembow and reggaeton. Its hosts are two characters called El Martillo and La Gata, and the voice behind El Martillo belongs to Bad Bunny.
Rockstar Games revealed the station on 8 October in a Newswire post on the music of Grand Theft Auto VI, one of six stations detailed ahead of the game’s release on 19 November. Bad Bunny shares the booth with fellow Puerto Rican singer-songwriter RaiNao, who voices La Gata, according to Rolling Stone’s report on the GTA VI radio hosts.
How Cocoteo FM Is Put Together
Rockstar describes Cocoteo FM as Leonida’s home for the best of modern Latin music, and its own tagline sums up the brief: “el party que nunca se apaga”, the party that never switches off. Leonida is the game’s Florida-inspired state, so a station built around Caribbean and Latin club music is less a novelty than a piece of world-building. It is the sound a player would expect to hear leaking out of car windows in that setting.
The three preview tracks give a first taste of the mix: Bad Bunny’s own “EoO”, “Si Es Trucho Es Trucho (Remix)” by Axel Rulay featuring Farruko and El Alfa, and “Canalla” by Romeo Santos and El Chaval de la Bachata. The stated range, from bachata and merengue to dembow and reggaeton, matters in a game. A station locked to one tempo would wear thin quickly; one that moves between textures can carry a long drive.
The hosting also follows series tradition. The DJs are characters rather than the artists playing themselves, so Bad Bunny appears as El Martillo, the hammer, and RaiNao as La Gata, the cat. The personas give the station room for the scripted chatter between songs that the series’ radio is known for.
Bad Bunny and RaiNao Behind the Mic
Casting Bad Bunny puts one of the biggest names in Latin music at the centre of the game’s dial. The pairing with RaiNao adds a second Puerto Rican voice, and it gives the station a duo dynamic rather than a single star turn.
RaiNao framed the role, in a statement reported by Pitchfork and relayed by Kotaku’s round-up of the GTA 6 radio hosts, as a chance to put the culture, music and people behind the station in the spotlight, and said Cocoteo captures their vibe, slang, taste, pride, experiences and traditions. Kotaku’s own reading of the announcement is that the hosts appear to have helped shape the music and the feel of their stations, rather than simply recording links.
For Bad Bunny, the booth is a different kind of stage. A radio host in a game this size is heard on repeat by players who may never buy a concert ticket, in a setting where the music is part of the scenery. It is exposure of an unusual shape: long, ambient and tied to a place on a map.
Five More Stations, Five More Famous Voices
Cocoteo FM is one of six stations Rockstar detailed, and each has been built around a recognisable host or pair. Consequence’s station-by-station breakdown lists the line-up:
- Back Country Radio: renegade country hosted by MW and Delta Dawne, voiced by Morgan Wallen and Lana Del Rey, with Del Rey’s husband, Jeremy Dufrene, as the roving reporter and swamp meteorologist Mud Dog Mike. Previews include David Allan Coe, Loretta Lynn, and Hank Williams Jr. with Waylon Jennings.
- AfroBank FM: African music from 20th-century classics to amapiano and 3-step, hosted by Burna and Palmsy, voiced by Burna Boy and the DJ Palms Trax. Previews include Asake’s “Joha” and Pat Thomas featuring Ebo Taylor.
- The Chamber 106.6: classic metal hosted by DJ Kerry and DJ Tom, voiced by Slayer’s Kerry King and Tom Araya, with Black Sabbath, Pantera and Slayer’s “Raining Blood” in the preview.
- Flash FM: pop hosted by Robyn, who appears as Robyn, and Alex, voiced by the model Alex Consani. Previews include Charli xcx, MGMT, and Zara Larsson with PinkPantheress.
- Dirty South Classics: regional rap and hip-hop classics from Trick and Trina, voiced by Trick Daddy and Trina, with David Banner, JT Money and DJ Khaled in the preview.
Rockstar says the full game spans stations dedicated to everything from classic rock to talk radio, and calls it the biggest and widest-ranging selection of in-game radio in the series so far. The six revealed on 8 October are a first look rather than the complete dial.
Radio That Follows You on Foot
The more structural change is how players will listen. For the first time in the series, Grand Theft Auto VI adds on-demand podcasts for its two protagonists, Jason and Lucia, alongside the terrestrial radio. Both the stations and the podcasts can be heard in vehicles and on foot, through headphones and earbuds connected to the characters’ smartphones, Rockstar says.
That small design decision changes the arrangement of the whole soundtrack. In earlier games the stations were mostly heard from behind the wheel. Letting the music follow the player on foot turns stations such as Cocoteo FM into something closer to a personal playlist inside the game, and it gives every host more airtime.
A Long Line of Star DJs in Grand Theft Auto
Famous hosts are not new to the series. Kenny Loggins hosted a station in Grand Theft Auto V and Iggy Pop hosted one in Grand Theft Auto IV, Kotaku notes. Flash FM itself first appeared in the original Vice City, and Robyn already had a track on the pop station in Grand Theft Auto V.
What is different this time is the number of current stars on one dial: Bad Bunny, Lana Del Rey, Morgan Wallen and Burna Boy share it with metal veterans and Southern rap pioneers. Lana Del Rey’s own connection to the series is personal: as Rolling Stone reported, the singer said some of the family knew the Los Angeles roads on a first visit because they had played Grand Theft Auto.
The series has always used its radio to define a place and a period. With Leonida modelled on Florida, a station built around Latin music and voiced by Puerto Rican artists reflects who lives in that kind of place and what they listen to. TopMusic.news has followed Latin music’s place on the global charts closely, including how the song Karol G almost left off topped the Global 200.
From the TopMusic.news Curator Team: “Cocoteo FM is built like a well-sequenced set: reggaeton, dembow and bachata in one mix, with two hosts to carry the gaps. Putting Bad Bunny in the booth tells players that Latin music is part of the map, not a side room.”
The Soundtrack Album and What Comes Next
The stations are only one layer of the game’s music. Rockstar is also releasing Grand Theft Auto VI: The Album, with 34 original tracks, on 19 November, the same day as the game. Travis Scott, Morgan Wallen, Rauw Alejandro, Yung Lean and Keith Richards have already released songs for it, Rolling Stone reports, and Rockstar has opened pre-saves along with vinyl and CD pre-orders.
Rockstar says more details are on the way, including information about the game’s dynamic score and more singles from the album. Previews of all six stations, Cocoteo FM included, are available now in the music section of the official Grand Theft Auto VI site.
For listeners, the useful takeaway is simple. When Grand Theft Auto VI arrives on PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X|S on 19 November, one of the first stations on the dial will be hosted by Bad Bunny, and it has been built to keep the party going for as long as the drive lasts.
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