Last night, during halftime at Super Bowl LX, the musician Bad Bunny paid homage to his home of Puerto Rico. He weaved his way through a set that featured barber shops and bodegas, family gatherings and elders playing dominos. But he also expanded his lens to make an argument about the place of Puerto Rico within a larger American context.
Over a 13-minute set that included more than a dozen of his songs, almost all in Spanish, the artist born Benito Antonio Martínez Ocasio made the perpetual in-betweenness of his home sing. Puerto Rico has long struggled to find its place in the Americas. Too Latin for some in the United States, as reinforced by much of the controversy leading up to Sunday night's performance and too closely associated with the United States to be fully accepted by some in Latin America. As Bad Bunny often does, he turned not fitting in into a super power, leveraging Puerto Rico's caught-between-two-worlds cultural identity to create an inclusive, All-American image.
Bad Bunny's opening words are always worth paying attention to. "Que rico es ser Latino," he said to start the show at Levi's Stadium in Santa Clara, Calif. Though there isn't really a proper English translation, the phrase means something close to, "How wonderful it is to be Latino," though the understanding of the Spanish phrase is more indulgent. Bad Bunny's opening line on each of the 31 nights of his residency last summer in San Juan was "Puerto Rico, estamos en casa." From beat one at the Super Bowl, he made it clear that the casa had expanded.
He packed a vibrant punch with quick passes of some of his most popular tracks, like "Tití Me Preguntó" and "Yo Perreo Sola," mostly leaning on heart-thumping hits. He made major nods to his latest album, the Grammy-winning DeBI TiRAR MaS FOToS, with "Voy a Llevarte pa PR," "Eoo," "Baile Inolvidable" and "Café Con Ron." Like only the most adept DJ or your favorite salsa band, he infused his mix with the kind of energy that could have kept people dancing 'til sunrise.
Bad Bunny's most striking imagery is always home, literally. During last summer's residency, he built his stage set around a typical Puerto Rican casita. That casita set remains the centerpiece of his Debí Tirar Más Fotos world tour, constructed to feel like a familiar Puerto Rican home in whichever location he happens to be performing, from Mexico to Colombia to California's Bay Area.
He fills his front porch with people he loves, in this case, musicians and actors including Karol G, Cardi B, Pedro Pascal and Young Miko. The show took time for poignant moments too: At one point, the camera showed a family sitting tightly together, watching a TV whose screen showed an image of Bad Bunny from one week earlier, accepting his Grammy for album of the year. Then, the real life Bad Bunny stepped into the frame, and handed the family's smallest member, a little boy, his Grammy. Perhaps the scene was meant to represent what he imagined Puerto Rico felt as he won. Or maybe he was speaking to his internal little self. Either way the moment spoke clearly: Puerto Rico's future is bright with him at the cultural helm.
The intent in his expanded representation of Latin America was apparent in his performance of "El Apagón" one of his equally most political party anthems. "Todo el mundo quiere ser latino, pero le falta sazón, batería y reggaeton," he repeated — "The whole world wants to be Latino but they lack seasoning, drums and reggaeton." At any club in Latin America, there's an unspoken agreement that if this track plays you drop what you're doing and sing this line with your full chest. Benito used it to send a message to the world from atop a flickering Luma light post. Luma Energy is the private Puerto Rican power company responsible for maintaining the power infrastructure for the entire island, though its name has become synonymous with power outages. One of the bleaker parts of Puerto Rican life right now, Bad Bunny used it as a vehicle for his message of pride — showing once again that even the worst experiences of Puerto Rican life can feel like the stuff of legend.
As the show went on he let sweet moments breathe. He took us to a wedding party full of shared things that Latino life feels like. (Yes, that couple did actually get married on stage: They had invited Bad Bunny to attend their wedding before being invited to instead have the ceremony during the halftime show: No gamble either team took during the actual game paid off as well as this one did.) The intergenerational presence at the party spoke to the idea in Latin America that life can be unpredictable, so we find as many excuses as possible to gather. The images went by in a flash, like universally shared memories: the cutting of the cake, Bad Bunny's brief spin with a little girl, his attempt to wake a boy from a mid-party siesta.
It may have felt easy to chalk up her inclusion as a way to pander to non-Spanish audiences, but Lady Gaga, as the wedding singer, fit too. The inclusion of her track "Die With a Smile" felt almost Latin, yes for the salsa arrangement, but more because its refrain — "If the world was ending, I'd wanna be next to you" — resonated perfectly with an underlying sentiment you'll find at any wedding in Latin America: Hay que vivir. You have to live.
One major topic of speculation before kickoff was which guests Benito would bring on stage, if any. Lady Gaga, of course, came out to represent a certain side of an American or global market he may not yet have tapped into. The only other person he passed the mic to was Puerto Rican legend Ricky Martin, who took the stage to sing one of Benito's most political tracks yet, "Lo Que le Pasó a Hawaii." Last week, Martin published an op-ed congratulating Bad Bunny on his Grammy win. "This achievement is for a generation you taught that their identity is non-negotiable and that success is not at odds with authenticity," he wrote.
There had been a growing anticipation around the question of just how political the singer would get, especially following his own comments on the Grammy stage and attacks from conservatives since he was named to play the halftime show. Opposition to his gig included the mounting of an alternative concert featuring Kid Rock and Brantley Gilbert. And viewers were quick to dissect every inch of the performance, quickly clocking intended symbolism but also digging to find major political moments that maybe just weren't. Almost immediately a rumor spread across the internet that the little boy featured in the living room scene might in fact be Liam Conejo Ramos, the 5-year-old detained by ICE agents in Minnesota nearly three weeks ago. (It was not Conejo Ramos, NPR Music confirmed.) Negative impressions were quickly delivered by others. President Trump reacted almost immediately, calling the performance "terrible" and "an affront to the greatness of America" in a post on Truth Social.
But if there was anything Benito wanted people to take away, in the end he spoke clearly. "God Bless America, o sea… ," he cried, "o sea" being a Spanish filler word often used to facilitate a clarification. Leading a rainbow procession of every flag in the Americas he then named every country in North and South America, including non-Spanish dominant or traditionally Latino places.
Almost immediately after the performance ended, the NFL posted a video of the closing moments of the show on its Instagram feed. A caption in Spanish stated, "Lo unico mas porderoso que el odio es el amor," alongside its English translation: "The only thing more powerful than hate is love." This was a reference to Bad Bunny's recent words on stage at the Grammys, and a message he had repeated many times at his summer residency and on tour. On one of its biggest and most profitable stages, Bad Bunny spoke clearly, in Spanish, with love. He has no interest in conforming his Latino-ness into a consumable American product; what he's going to do is show you that what Latinos have is the greatest American product there is.
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