When Bad Bunny, formally known as Benito Antonio Martínez Ocasio, was announced to be this year’s halftime performer, the internet world erupted in controversy. Many were excited to see a Latinx artist headline a show of this scale, especially amidst the current political climate, but others were appalled. Both President Trump and Vice President JD Vance were outspoken about their disapproval of Bad Bunny being the NFL’s top choice for the night.  

Many of Trump’s supporters were reported to tune in to Turning Point’s “All-American” halftime show instead, with performances from Kid Rock, Brantley Gilbert (whoever in the world that is), and Lee Brice (also not a name worth remembering). Rock’s performance was marked by a strange hat, poor lip syncing, and perhaps just a few too many pyrotechnics. Video footage shows that at least ten people were there, making for five more than anticipated.   

The show was star-studded, celebrities from across various disciplines grooving alongside Bad Bunny in his pink casita. People like Pedro Pascal, a Chilean American actor, Young Miko, a fellow Puerto Rican rapper, and Karol G, a Columbian singer, joined Ocasio to celebrate Latinx excellence (Alix Earle was also there for the white card, but who knows really). Lady Gaga made a surprise entrance to sing a rendition of “Die With a Smile” while celebrating the wedding of two Bad Bunny fans. 

Bad Bunny’s performance was littered with references to Puerto Rico, both political and cultural, where viewers were transported to a place that he has expressed infinite love for. The performance began in a sugar cane field, not-so-subliminally hinting at the impact of colonial practices implemented on the island. As early as the 1400s, Puerto Rico (PR) was subject to violent exploitation by Spain to produce sugar via hundreds of plantations on the island.  

This violation continued when Spain was forced to cede PR to the U.S. in 1898, a choice that would ultimately shape the economic and geopolitical environment for the next 120 years. The Foraker Act of 1900 made PR an unincorporated territory of the U.S., allowing the government to appoint a governor, Executive Council, and establish complete military rule with no voting rights for the inhabitants. The first of these self-appointed governors was Charles Herbert Allen, a corrupt businessman who would go on to destroy the island’s minimal infrastructure to put money back in the pockets of American corporations and fellow bureaucrats who held political positions in PR. After just one year of his service, he fled to Wall Street to create the largest sugar syndicate in the world, the American Sugar Refining Company.  

Now known as Domino Sugar, the company continues exploitative practices established 100 years ago, resulting in the island suffering under the sturdy hand of American economic tyranny to this day.  

Sugar cane encompassed the entire performance area, showing how dominant the economic ventures of Domino Sugar are for the inhabitants of PR. Even so, in the middle of it all, puertorriqueños find joy in the things that are a staple of Latino culture. Things like piraguas — a Puerto Rican shaved-ice dessert — dancing, celebrations with family, and an overwhelming sense of joy made a global performance an intimate love-letter to his homeland.  

The sugar cane wasn’t the only nod to the struggles of those residing in PR. When Bad Bunny began his transition into “El Apagón,” a song off his 2022 album, Un Verano Sin Ti, dancers were situated on electricity poles that sparked and subsequently crashed. The song sings about the mass blackouts that the island faced, particularly during Hurricane Maria in 2017. The hurricane was a category 5 storm, the worst of the 2017 season, tearing through the region and leaving millions of Puerto Ricans without energy for almost 11 months.  The response from the Trump administration was unsurprisingly poor given that in the first year he was president he aimed to cut over half a million dollars from the Federal Emergency Management Agency’s budget. 

Trump’s deployment of FEMA was widely criticized. Although agents were on the island within just weeks after Maria made landfall, life-sustaining materials took on average 69 days to arrive, and the agency was unable to track over 35 percent of the vital materials needed to provide relief to those affected. When Trump did finally arrive on the island, he threw paper towels into a crowd of puertorriqueños and claimed that “…Puerto Rico was an incredible, unsung success.” 

Today, the new wave of demolition comes from wealthy mainland Americans moving to the island to scoop up cheap land and avoid paying taxes. Many of the people attracted to the prospect of low taxes are working remotely, steering money away from the Puerto Rican economy while jacking the prices of living so native puertorriqueños are forced to move away from the land they call home. Influencers such as the Paul brothers have capitalized on this, moving full-time to PR in 2021 and soaking up all those sweet tax breaks for the rich while tweeting “A fake American citizen performing who publicly hates America. I cannot support that.” 

Ricky Martin’s addition to the set was through Ocasio’s song “LO QUE LE PASÓ A HAWAii,” a song dedicated to addressing the similarities between mainland America’s treatment of PR and Hawaii; both islands have faced the difficulties of economies overridden with mainland expats.  

Bad Bunny’s artistry comes from illuminating these struggles to create a uniquely tailored sound that uplifts the culture he came from. Songs like “TURiSTA” and “VOY A LLeVARTE PA PR” show his ability to combine fun beats rooted in the traditional Latin sounds of reggaeton and bolero with deep-cutting lyrics to address the pain of his fellow puertorriqueños.  

Puerto Rico is at the heart of contemporary American politics. It is modern day penal colony stuck in the tight grip of unwavering colonial practices, and yet, the residents still manage to find joy, community, and beauty in the spaces that they love so dearly.  

The performance wrapped with dancers waving flags from various nations of Latin America while saying “God bless America” and eventually naming every country from the tip of South America all the way up to Canada. The message that viewers were left with was that what makes America so great is not hatred, bigotry, and exclusionary politics but rather the diverse backgrounds of its people.  

Bad Bunny’s performance was a celebration of the things that weave the fabric of Puerto Rican culture together, the very essence of what it means to be Latino. He expertly combined the beauty of entertainment while never letting go of his roots, amplifying the voices of the otherwise politically unheard. The show exemplified how art can be a uniting force even in the face of those who are doing everything in their power to repress the common ground.