Where were you the night of Sunday, Feb. 8?
I was on a bus in Mexico, coming home from an archaeological site and desperate for cell service, while my classmates desperately tried to figure out what time the performance would start. When our bus arrived, we rushed to our makeshift classroom space, eager to watch history be made. Our professor considered getting a Peacock subscription for the event, while a classmate’s partner offered to FaceTime us. Ultimately, after some VPN magic and probably exposing myself to all kinds of computer viruses, we found a broadcast, settled down and watched Bad Bunny’s Super Bowl Halftime Show.
We were not alone; an estimated 128.2 million viewers watched this year’s Super Bowl, with an increase of 4 million between 8:15 and 8:30 p.m., indicating that, like us, millions of people tuned in for Benito Antonio Martínez Ocasio (Bad Bunny) only. This is unsurprising, as the promise of a Puerto Rican artist performing entirely in Spanish at one of the most quintessentially (white) American events, at a time when violence against Latino populations and immigrants is increasing dramatically, was bound to draw attention.
The performance opened with a scene decidedly removed from the Bay Area’s Levi’s Stadium, as a man wearing a pava, hats traditionally worn by farmers called jibaros, declared, “Qué rico es ser Latino.” The camera panned over a field constructed in the middle of the stadium before settling on Ocasio, surrounded by sugarcane workers. Right away, viewers were made aware that this was going to be different. It would be beautiful, historical and incredibly political. Sugarcane became PR’s largest cash crop under U.S. occupation, where labor exploitation was rampant and the majority of profits went to American companies on the mainland.
Ocasio was seen wearing an all-white suit and a leather football jersey with the number 64 on both sides. The back of the jersey featured his mother’s last name, Ocasio, rather than his father’s, Martínez. In a statement provided to The Cut, the artist described the jersey as an homage to his late uncle Cutito, born in 1964. Cutito was a big fan of the NFL and taught his nephew about the sport.
“I always dreamed of taking my uncle to a Super Bowl and I couldn’t,” Ocasio said. “So during my Super Bowl halftime show, I decided to have him on my shirt. I dedicated my performance to him before it began.”
Others online speculated that there is a secondary political meaning that alludes to the aftermath of Hurricane Maria, which devastated the island in 2017. The government initially reported a mere 64 deaths as a result of the hurricane, despite the evidence that the real number was much higher. It took the government a year to announce that the death toll was 2,975 people.
Viewers followed Ocasio through a landscape rich with cultural references; exiting the sugarcane fields, passed a stand selling coconut water, a table of old men playing dominoes and then two women at a nail salon. We duck under two sparring boxers, one dressed in the colors of the Mexican flag and the other in the colors of Puerto Rico. Ocasio stops by a piraguas stand before handing the snow cone-like treat to a man selling tacos.
Then there was la casita, the now-recognizable house featured in the artist’s residency titled “No Me Quiero Ir de Aquí.” The porch was full of Latin American celebrities, from Colombia’s Karol G to Chile’s Pedro Pascal, from PR’s Young Miko to Cardi B, who is of Dominican and Trinidadian descent. In front of the casita, there were female performers dancing to “Yo Perreo Sola,” while Ocasio shouts, “Las mujeres en el mundo entero, perreando sin miedo,” quite literally from the rooftops. The song’s lyrics appear on the Jumbotron, next to an animated video of the sapo concho, a critically endangered frog that has become symbolic of Puerto Rican resilience.
After falling through the house’s roof—perhaps in reference to the island’s crumbling infrastructure as a result of U.S. colonial neglect—Ocasio walked through another crowd of dancing couples, including the same sex. Among the couples, Ocasio invited one couple to get married on stage at the Super Bowl instead, and they promptly accepted. Ocasio even signed the couple’s marriage license and acted as a witness.
Perhaps even more unexpected than an actual on-stage wedding was Lady Gaga’s cameo. Gaga appeared in a light-blue dress, the color of the PR Independence flag, with a red flower resembling PR’s national flower pinned to her chest. She sang a salsa-fied version of “Die with a Smile” before dancing with Ocasio himself. While critics wondered why he included Gaga instead of any of the Latina talent present during the show, Out Magazine notes that Ocasio has described himself as a big fan of Gaga’s work. He credits her music with helping him understand and respect queer culture, especially drag, which he adopted in the music video for
“Yo Perreo Sola.” While the newlyweds shared their first dance to “Baile Inolvidable,” Ocasio shouted, “baila sin miedo, ama sin miedo,” another possible reference to his support for the queer community.
From there, Ocasio trust-fell into a crowd of dancers and viewers were immersed in a vibrant neighborhood for the song “Nuevayol.” The backdrop included a barbershop and most famously, Toñita Cay, owner of one of New York City’s last Puerto Rican social clubs. One of the buildings is called “conejo,” a nod at the singer’s own stage name and one of the many easter-egg details that revel in the magic of the quotidian. Ocasio then gave a Grammy award to a five-year-old version of himself who was watching the singer’s acceptance speech on TV. Ocasio won three Grammys this year, including the first-ever Spanish-language album to win Album of the Year for “Debí Tirar Más Fotos.”
Another key symbol on display is the white plastic chair seen on the album cover for “Debí Tirar Más Fotos.” Singer Ricky Martin is seen seated on one for his rendition of Ocasio’s “Lo Que Le Pasó a Hawaii,” a song that opposes the possibility of Puerto Rican statehood by highlighting the cultural and economic displacement of native Hawaiians and the gentrification that comes with turning people’s homes into tourist destinations. Martin’s inclusion as a Latino artist is significant, as he paved the way for singers like Ocasio to express themselves and to do so in Spanish.
In an open letter to Bad Bunny, Martin expressed the joy he felt upon seeing the former’s success at the Grammys. “You won without changing the color of your voice. You won without erasing your roots. You won by staying true to Puerto Rico,” Martin wrote. “This achievement is for a generation to whom you taught that their identity is non-negotiable and that success is not at odds with authenticity.”
Martin’s song was cut off by an abrupt explosion and the start of the song “El Apagón,” which translates to “the blackout.” The music video was released in 2022, alongside a 22-minute documentary by investigative journalist Bianca Graulau criticizing frequent power cuts, land privatization and government inaction. In 2017, after Hurricane Maria, the Washington Post reported that the island was “in the dark” for 181 days, 6 hours and 45 minutes. Ocasio displayed the Puerto Rican independence flag before mounting one of the exploding poles alongside jíbaros in pavas. This flag is known for having a lighter blue triangle, rather than the version adopted in 1952 that darkened the blue to match the American flag. The Independence flag was outlawed for decades, a fact mentioned by the singer in “La Mudanza.”
Ocasio ended his performance with his first and only English words of the night. Surrounded by dancers carrying dozens of flags, Ocasio declared, “God bless America” and then named every Latin American country ending with the United States, Canada and Puerto Rico. In his hands was the football he carried at the start, upon which the words “Together We Are America” were inscribed. As he left the field singing “DtMF,” the Jumbotron read, “The only thing stronger than hate is love.” It was undoubtedly a message of unity, of resilience in the face of discrimination and hardship. It was a love letter to Puerto Rico and to all Americans, a term which he correctly identifies as describing everyone in the Western hemisphere. As Ocasio stated in a press conference before the event, “English is not my first language. But it’s okay, it’s not America’s first language either.”
While Turning Point USA’s counterprogramming included outspoken anti-trans figures like Kid Rock and billed itself as the “All-American Halftime Show,” Bad Bunny’s message was one of true inclusion and a rejection of the culture war divisiveness it provoked. It was also a reminder that joy and celebration are themselves acts of resistance and that art is political.