Fresh off last week’s historic Album of the Year Grammy win, Spanish-rapping Bad Bunny brought his singular stamp of joy to Levi’s Stadium during Super Bowl LX, starting in a sugar cane field, in what many termed a cultural game changer.
He donned a white football jersey bearing the number 64 and his given surname, Ocasio, to kick off the 13-minute halftime show, cradling a football-shaped coconut as he strode past harvesters, food stands and merch vendors set up on the field, singing “Tití Me Preguntó.”
Kevin C. Cox/Getty Images
Bad Bunny and Lady Gaga perform onstage during the Super Bowl halftime show on Sunday. (Photo by Kevin C. Cox/Getty Images)
He sang all in Spanish, but he had made clear early on that dance was the only language anyone needed.
“It’s going to be a huge party,” he said in an interview ahead of the show, noting it would bring his Puerto Rican culture, plus some surprises. “It’s going to be fun.”
Lady Gaga appeared during a wedding skit to sing her part in the Bruno Mars collaboration “Die with a Smile,” and was joined by Bad Bunny as they broke into a salsa dance. Ricky Martin performed “Lo Que Le Pasó a Hawaii,” (“What Happened to Hawaii”), an affirmation of Puerto Rico’s cultural autonomy.
The audience roared and cheered as Bad Bunny dance-narrated his way through a slew of scenarios and cities, surrounded by exuberant dancers who moved between salsa and reggeton rhythms. There was also a nod to Puerto Rico’s frequent blackouts, shown by exploding power poles, that included “El Apagón” (“The Blackout”), about the aftermath of Hurricane Maria.
“God Bless America,” Bad Bunny sang at the end, naming every country in South, Central and North America from Argentina, to Guatemala, to Mexico, to Cuba, to Canada, and “the United States of America.”
NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell had highlighted Bad Bunny and his art as a unifying influence.
“Bad Bunny … is one of the greatest artists in the world, and that’s one of the reasons we chose him,” Goodell said last Monday at his annual pre-Super Bowl press conference. “But the other reason is he understood the platform he was on, and that this platform is used to unite people and to be able to bring people together with their creativity, with their talents and to be able to use this moment to do that.”
With News Wire Services
