Bad Bunny arrived connected the Super Bowl signifier wearing a metallic trenchcoat and a matching do-rag. He delivered a perfectly incendiary verse successful which helium declared, “Viva la raza!”, and past helium disappeared—and nary 1 truly seemed to mind. The twelvemonth was 2020, and Bad Bunny was appearing arsenic a peculiar impermanent of Shakira, who was 1 of the halftime show’s 2 headliners. (The different was Jennifer Lopez.) Back then, helium was neither a nationalist obsession nor the taxable of fierce governmental debate; erstwhile helium declared, “Viva la raza!”, helium was saluting the Texas-born nonrecreational wrestler Eddie Guerrero, who had adopted that operation arsenic his rallying cry. This year, Bad Bunny returned to the Super Bowl arsenic some the halftime headliner and the event’s main newsmaker, often overshadowing the players who were ostensibly the apical attraction. (He has much than 50 cardinal followers connected Instagram, which is astir a 100 times arsenic galore arsenic Sam Darnold, the Seattle Seahawks’ quarterback.) Bad Bunny is simply a Puerto Rican prima who performs astir wholly successful Spanish, who endorsed Kamala Harris successful 2024, and who has been captious of Immigration and Customs Enforcement. And yet the quality that helium would beryllium this year’s Super Bowl headliner transformed him into thing helium had ne'er truly been before: a divisive figure. In aboriginal October, not agelong aft the halftime-show announcement, President Donald Trump described the N.F.L.’s determination to big Bad Bunny arsenic “absolutely ridiculous,” though helium besides claimed that he’d “never heard of him.” Shortly afterward, Turning Point USA, the blimpish pupil network, said that it would nutrient a competing concert, the All-American Halftime Show—an attempt, perhaps, to upstage the upstager.
That is astir apt not possible, astatine slightest not close now. Bad Bunny has spent the past decennary creating 1 of the astir irresistible bodies of enactment successful each of fashionable music, and turning himself into an equivalently transfixing performer, singing and rapping successful a chill and deceptively casual dependable that tin marque astir immoderate bushed dependable arsenic if it were created conscionable for him. And connected Sunday helium enactment connected what mightiness person been the champion halftime show successful Super Bowl history: a riot of machine-tooled beats and swaying melodies, accompanied by truthful overmuch dancing and truthful galore antithetic scenes—from a sugarcane plantation to a miniature nail salon to a fistful of malfunctioning electrical poles, to evoke and protestation the island’s rolling blackouts—that erstwhile it was over, scarcely thirteen minutes aft it began, viewers mightiness astir person forgotten the appearances by Lady Gaga and Ricky Martin.
The acceptable moved backward successful philharmonic history, opening with the loping rhythms of reggaetón and ending with the exuberant clatter of accepted drums, arsenic Bad Bunny sang the chorus of “DtMF,” the rubric way from his astir caller album, “DeBÍ TiRAR MáS FOToS” (“I Should Have Taken More Photos”), which past play won the Grammy for champion album. Before helium walked disconnected the field, helium spiked the shot helium had been carrying during the show—an unnecessary gesture, but not astatine each an unearned one.
Bad Bunny is conscionable astir arsenic fashionable arsenic it is imaginable for a instrumentalist to be: helium was the astir listened-to instrumentalist connected Spotify past year, and successful 3 of the 5 years earlier that. (In the different 2 years, Taylor Swift was No. 1.) This partially reflects the immense size of the Spanish-language audience—worldwide, lone Mandarin has much autochthonal speakers. But it besides reflects his quality to scope listeners done sound, alternatively than sense. The comic happening astir the Bad Bunny contention is that, earlier a fewer months ago, galore of his English-speaking fans astir apt hadn’t ever bothered to look up translations of his lyrics. In the days earlier the Super Bowl, Pat McAfee, the erstwhile punter who is present a brash ESPN host, enthused astir “Chambea,” a decade-old Bad Bunny hit; the rubric refers to loading a gun. “No thought what he’s saying, but it’s fuckin’—it’s great,” McAfee said.
Like truthful overmuch of the champion pop, Bad Bunny’s euphony feels inclusive and exclusive astatine the aforesaid time. Last summer, alternatively of going connected tour, helium stayed home, playing 30 shows astatine the José Miguel Agrelot Coliseum, successful San Juan, with the archetypal 9 reserved for locals, and the adjacent twenty-one unfastened to Bad Bunny-loving tourists from astir the world; helium aboriginal added a thirty-first, which was streamed unrecorded connected Prime Video and Twitch. What made his Super Bowl show truthful memorable was the mixed connection it delivered. As a Puerto Rican, Bad Bunny is wholly American, but not uncomplicatedly so: the light-blue emblem helium raised implicit his enarthrosis is associated with Puerto Rico’s independency movement. The astir melodramatic infinitesimal of the amusement came adjacent the end, erstwhile helium led a parade of nationalist flags, with the U.S. emblem successful front. “God bless America,” helium said, and past helium clarified that helium was referring to each of the Americas: “Chile, Argentina, Uruguay,” helium began, listing the countries successful unsmooth geographic order, from southbound to north, ending with the U.S. and Canada. Depending connected your constituent of view, you could deliberation of Bad Bunny’s triumphant acceptable arsenic a tribute to the powerfulness and capaciousness of American fashionable music—or arsenic a pointed critique of it.
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