Bad Bunny’s halftime show reminds everyone the power of unity
“Mi nombre es Benito Antonio Martínez Ocasio, y si hoy estoy aquí en el Super Bowl 60, es porque nunca, nunca dejé de creer en mí./My name is Benito Antonio Martínez Ocasio. And if today I’m here at the 60th Super Bowl, it’s because I never, never stopped believing in me” – Bad Bunny declared this statement to the world as my living room erupted into cheers for his performance to continue.
Super Bowl LX was one I couldn’t miss, despite not knowing what to expect from it. The Seattle Seahawks and the New England Patriots were going to battle on the field, but I was watching it specifically for Bad Bunny’s (Benito’s) halftime show.
Bad Bunny, a beloved Latin music artist, sparked controversy amongst conservatives, such as Tomi Lahren, in the fall, when the NFL announced he would perform at the 2026 halftime show. Hers and others’ complaints were focused on him being primarily a Spanish artist and wanting an American artist to perform, but it fell flat because Puerto Rico is part of the United States. However, these couple of weeks showed he was going to make waves despite initial backlash.
At the Grammys on Feb. 1, Benito won both Album of the Year and Best Música Urbana Album with Debí Tirar Más Fotos, with the first award being monumental as it was the first exclusively Spanish album ever to win Album of the Year at the Grammys. It was a victory that triumphed over President Trump proclaiming that Benito shouldn’t be performing in the halftime show, as well as Turning Point USA’s own separate halftime show to protest against his performance. Other conservative responses came from Fox News, Laura Loomer and Republican senators, who were incensed about his selection, but on Feb. 8 the day finally came for him to demonstrate why he was picked.
In the first scene of the halftime show, we see a worker playing a guitar in an open sugarcane field saying, “Que rico es ser Latino. Hoy se bebe/ How great is it to be Latino. Tonight we’re drinking! ” It then pans above to show sugarcane workers harvesting and tilling the fields. This image immediately recalls Puerto Rico’s colonial legacy of being a site where enslaved workers harvested sugarcane fields for the Spanish, and then for the United States under new conditions. It’s extremely powerful, and sets the stage to understand how Puerto Rico came to be and how its history will change throughout the performance.
From this scene, it switches to the actual football stadium, with sugarcane surrounding the center of the football field. When we arrive between the stalks, Benito is there to greet us by singing “Titi Me Preguntó.” He strolls around these fields as different scenes hit us: coco frío carts giving out drinks to young people, older men playing dominoes, women having their manicures done, a piragua vendor selling snow cones, a street cart selling tacos and men boxing one another. All of these scenes invoke not just the island of Puerto Rico, but the life that exists there. From the violence that these sugarcane fields inflicted, people were able to resist this oppression and find love and community. That’s why Benito chose to walk amongst the fields – to demonstrate how love finds a way to thrive despite hardship.
The beat then switches into “Yo Perreo Sola.” The energy becomes electric with the tempo switch, and from the stage La Casita emerges, a traditional Puerto Rican-style home. Benito appears on top of this house, and shouts “Bienvenidos a la fiesta más grande en el mundo entero/ Welcome to the biggest party in the whole world,” while the song switches into “VOY A LLeVARTE PA PR”. It struck me as quite poignant to see him alone on stage, dancing and singing, while so many people try to take this opportunity away from him, doubting his abilities and questioning if he’s a proper fit. Yet, with this solitude, he opens the doors to everyone to participate in this party, as dancers join him for this song.
Benito then crashes into the house from above and leaves to join the party downstairs, with “EeO” playing in the background. He then climbs onto a truck and sings above the stalks of grass. This transition between heights is intentional, as it demonstrates his ability to rise to the occasion, but also his want to join the community below. He is able to climb because he knows that people support him and that community is one of the strongest and most important connections out there. He understands this love between worlds and cherishes it.
The scene then changes to an orchestra playing “MONACO” while Benito declares, “Mi nombre es Benito Antonio Martínez Ocasio, y si hoy estoy aquí en el Super Bowl 60, es porque nunca, nunca dejé de creer en mí./My name is Benito Antonio Martínez Ocasio. And if today I’m here at the 60th Super Bowl, it’s because I never, never stopped believing in me.” This speech is vital to the performance, showing how he was able to persevere and succeed despite hardships. His own desire to succeed is what led him to triumph, and he intends to make all of us understand our own self worth as well by ending this speech with, “Tú también deberías de creer en ti. Confía en mí./You also deserve to believe in yourself. Believe in me.”
The show immediately pans back towards La Casita, but now a real marriage is occurring live on top of the roof. We see this marriage being shared amongst the crowd, but it’s really amongst the world.
I was completely flabbergasted when I saw Lady Gaga emerge behind the married couple and begin to sing a salsa rendition of her song with Bruno Mars “Die with A Smile.” This rendition immediately changes the atmosphere, with trumpets blaring, maracas shaking and the upbeat tempo instantly lighting up the mood. The whole wedding breaks into salsa dancing, and then Benito emerges from the scenery, holding Gaga’s hands while the song switches to“BAILE INoLVIDABLE.”
This sequence is one of the most beautiful scenes I’ve ever witnessed in live music. The camera is shaky, as it pans to all the people dancing and enjoying one another’s company. It makes the viewer feel part of this celebration, breaking the screen that connects us and divides us from one another, making us feel alive. Dancing with people from all ages, races and backgrounds is beautiful within the chaos, representing how community and love are powerful enough to dismantle barriers.
“Baila sin miedo, ama sin miedo/Dance without fear, love without fear,” Benito shouts at the top of his lungs to end this scene, joining the dancers on the ground once more by falling into their arms. Storefronts dot the scenery now, and the dancing becomes more freestyle.
This scene immediately changes to a child sitting in front of a TV with his parents, watching Benito’s acceptance speech at the Grammys. Benito then emerges once again from the field and gives the kid a Grammy – he wants to be a source of inspiration for everyone, and this young boy represents not just his younger self, but everyone who has the desire to dream for their own success.
After Benito breaks into dance once more, a man sitting amongst the tall grasses plays the guitar, accompanied by Puerto Rican singer Ricky Martin, who sits in a white plastic chair and sings “LO QUE LE PASÓ A HAWAII”, a song that parallels Puerto Rico’s history with Hawaii. Bananas are behind him, and this song, out of all of the songs from his album, resonates not just with perseverance, but with autonomy. Hawaii, once its own nation before August 12, 1898, was stripped of its sovereignty by the United States and forced to assimilate. Native Hawaiians lost their political and territorial power after this annexation, but still fight to remain present in their own homeland.
Puerto Rico, although a territory, is being threatened with assimilation and colonization like Hawaii still. Through tax codes that leave residents competing against Americans for their own land, electricity being directed to wealthy American transplant areas and English being pushed to be spoken on the island, Puerto Rico faces an ongoing battle that is expressed in this song through parallels of Hawaii’s own story. The song is a call to action, to remind Puerto Ricans to be united in order to not allow these efforts to succeed. After Martin finishes this song, the utility poles behind him explode as the power goes out.
With this outage, the dancers on the poles fall down, and “El Apagón” begins to play. Benito emerges from the tall grasses with a Puerto Rican flag with sky blue stripes, which represents independence and resistance to colonial rule.
Yet, the combination of the flag and the blackout, in connection to this song, reveals what this scene is about. “El Apagón” discusses outages that Puerto Rico regularly experiences due to the poor electricity infrastructure and constant hurricanes that hit the island. Those issues are only exacerbated by the United States. The United States withheld $20 billion in aid from Puerto Rico during Hurricane Maria, according to The Guardian, then setting up the electric grid for failure as well, according to NBC News. The island currently runs on a decades old cable system that desperately needs repair and is being blocked from renovation from the current Trump administration, according to The Associated Press.
Still, the flag waves triumphantly with Benito despite these issues. The only instrument that plays during this section are drums, as Benito’s voice provides the company. It’s the bare necessities for a song, yet, with these bare necessities, people can still come together to make music and community. Benito begins to climb the utility pole, with him consciously rising above the stage. He’s able to rise not just due to his grit, but due to the community around him, as the dancers join him on this scene amongst the utility poles. Despite all the hardships that his beloved island faces, Benito rises above, symbolizing how love is still more powerful than the hurdles we traverse.
The utility poles explode once more to conclude this scene and the song switches to “CAFé CON RON.” Benito begins to dance and descends down. The camera shows a scene of people dancing, and, from the back, different flags begin to appear with people rushing down the field to the front. It then pans to Benito receiving a football, as he shouts out “God Bless America,” the one and only English line from him during his entire performance.
He begins to rush down the field with different flags from the Americas, as he shouts out their respective country names. The scene breaks down the notion that the United States should always take center stage, and invites the whole continent to revel in this celebration. “God Bless America” cannot exist without the other countries, so this simple line in English does the work of including everyone rather than excluding them. The slogan “WHAT’S MORE POWERFUL THAN HATE IS LOVE” appears on a billboard to end the performance.
Bad Bunny’s performance left me completely enamoured with hope again. It crossed several boundaries and inserted politics into music, demonstrating how the two exist within one another constantly. His album Debí Tirar Más Fotos was the most important piece of this performance, as he chose songs that symbolized not just unity but also community. Community can bridge us together in these difficult times, and Benito’s performance does that, invoking nostalgia and, most importantly, love.