History Class with Bad Bunny
This blog is best read while listening to Debí Tirar Más Fotos
After making history as the first artist to win Album of the Year at the Grammys for a Spanish-language record, Bad Bunny took the stage for the Super Bowl LX halftime show. His performance was a deep celebration of Puerto Rican and Hispanic culture and was rooted in history, tradition, joy and unity.
Holding a football and singing “Tití Me Preguntó,” Bad Bunny appeared among the sugarcane fields of Puerto Rico, made up of people in grass costumes and filled with dancers dressed as jíbaros (farmers) wearing traditional pava hats, an homage to those who powered Puerto Rico’s sugarcane industry. Sugar plantations fueled Puerto Rico’s economy until the mid-20th century and carry a legacy of Spanish and U.S. colonialism in the Caribbean, which is still impacting life and sovereignty in the region.
Later in the show, Bad Bunny threw a party at his “Casita,” which fans may recognize from his short film Debí Tirar Más Fotos. This traditional-style house, designed to withstand hurricanes, became the center of his performance and host to an array of celebrity guests who danced along with him. Notable among them were Cardi B, Pedro Pascal, Karol G and Jessica Alba.
Viewers were then transported to New York City, where Benito took a shot given to him by Toñita, a pillar in the Latino community of Brooklyn. She runs a social club in Williamsburg and has notoriously refused to sell her property despite heavy gentrification in the neighborhood. Her establishment serves as a connection between Puerto Rico and the mainland, offering a space for culture to thrive. This portion of the performance was a love letter to immigrant communities in the United States, emphasizing the solidarity formed between Hispanic cultural groups.
Bad Bunny frequently incorporates elements of traditional Puerto Rican plena and bomba music into his work, which were represented throughout the entire show with an array of instruments local to his home country. Included were maracas, pandero (a hand drum) and Puerto Rico’s national instrument, a 10-string guitar called the cuatro. With these instruments defining the soundtrack of the performance, every song carried cultural importance and represented Bad Bunny’s home.
After being announced as the halftime headliner, Bad Bunny was met with extreme backlash, with critics saying that his Spanish lyrics would be isolating and that he wasn’t a “true American,” despite Puerto Rico being a U.S. territory. He responded by using joy as a form of protest, thematically reframing the U.S.-centric narrative of what it means to be an American. The show closed with a powerful and energetic rendition of “DtMF,” where Bad Bunny- followed by the flags of every country in the continental America- proclaimed “God Bless America” before listing each nation whose flag was flying behind him. Behind him, the scoreboard projected the statement “THE ONLY THING MORE POWERFUL THAN HATE IS LOVE.”
The message was clear and impactful: We must embrace cultural diversity in the Americas and focus on protecting and uplifting our neighbors.