Bad Bunny promised “the world will dance” in his advertisement before the Apple Music Super Bowl Halftime Show, and his joyous, elaborate, unapologetic, unity-themed performance did not disappoint as he — with Lady Gaga, Ricky Martin and many more — raced through a medley of his songs, introducing them and himself to many of the more than 100 million viewers.
The show was steeped in the tradition of Latin America and especially his native Puerto Rico, as the elaborate set included a house (similar to the one in his “No Me Quiero Ir de Aquí” residency in Puerto Rico — which was previewed in Variety‘s Bad Bunny cover story last June — transforming the space into a Puerto Rico vecindad, with a barber shop, liquor store, and the iconic “casita,” the small house where he would welcome celebrity guests during his Puerto Rico residency. On Sunday night, Karol G, Cardi B Young, Miko Jessica Alba and Pedro Pascal were spotted dancing under the casita’s roof as the performance moved through a mock sugar-cane field, a giant dancefloor filled with exuberant dancers — and an actual wedding, his rep confirms. The performance was so loaded with Easter eggs and subtle political references that his fans will be decoding it for weeks.
But unity was a key theme. At the end of the performance, Bad Bunny declared “God Bless America,” before naming every country in North and South America, and the Caribbean, including the United States, Canada and, of course, his “motherland,” Puerto Rico.
Behind him, a billboard flashed in giant letters: “The only thing more powerful than hate is love,” likely a direct rebuke to the negative comments — many of them racist — that he received before he’d even set foot on stage. Many moments and elements in the show could also be perceived as a rebuke to the Trump administration and its brutal anti-immigration policies.
The show was threaded with references to his island and references to politics — including a cream Zara jersey stamped with the number 64, a possible nod to the first-reported death toll of Hurricane Maria — but the night was, above all, a dance party.
At the center of the performance, Gaga sang a salsa-inflected version of her 2024 hit with Bruno Mars, “Die With a Smile,” as the couple were married onstage.
In another nod to Puerto Rico, Bad Bunny welcomed fellow native Ricky Martin to the stage for a brief version of “lo que le pasó a Hawái”— from Bad Bunny’s Grammy-winning latest album, “Debí tirar más fotos.”
In perhaps the performance’s most loaded political moment, Bad Bunny’s Grammy acceptance speech, during which he’d said “ICE out” and gave an impassioned speech in English about racism, was replayed on a small television as a young boy — who certainly resembled Liam, the 5-year-old who was incarcerated by ICE in Minneapolis last month — and then the singer handed him his Grammy Award.
Before the game, a group of protesters gathered near Tasman Drive by the stadium’s East Side entrance, carrying “ICE OUT!” towels and “Abolish ICE Now!” posters as football fans streamed inside. (Despite earlier threats from Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem, ICE agents were not in evidence at the Super Bowl.)
The singer opened the show with his hit “Tití Me Preguntó,” kicking off the energy immediately, walking through a the sugar-cane field, bumping into viejitos playing dominoes, a Villa’s Tacos stand, and Toñita, the owner of the Caribbean Social Club, who handed the singer a shot of rum. He then moved past a nail salon, a barber shop, and a boxing match with Puerto Rican boxers Xander Zayas and Emiliano Vargas.
After the high-octane opener, Bad Bunny emerged on the rooftop of a Super Bowl-recreated casita for “Yo Perreo Sola” as some A-list Latino stars, including Karol G, Cardi B, Jessica Alba, and Pedro Pascal were seen perreando under the on-field roof in another display of Latino unity. (Alix Earle and some other non-Latino stars worked their way onto the small porch, too.)
As Bad Bunny sang his hit “Monaco,” Lady Gaga joined the show on an elevated platform for a Puerto Rican wedding recreation, emerging as a salsa singer for a Latinafied reimagining of “Die With a Smile,” supported by legendary salsa group Los Sobrinos. After the performance, Bad Bunny joined Gaga onstage for a joyful dance to “Baile Inolvidable.” The moment stood out as one of the show’s most powerful: Bad Bunny, the most dominant Latino star in the world, sharing the stage with Gaga, a universally beloved pop veteran, for an unapologetic Latino reinterpretation of one of the biggest pop songs on the planet — unity, indeed.
“Dance, dance, dance without fear,” Bad Bunny said in Spanish to end the song before falling onto a crowd of dancers that caught him for the start of “Nueva Yol.”
After Gaga, a poignant moment followed, led by the second music guest of the evening: Ricky Martin. The Puerto Rican star appeared onstage sitting on one of the plastic chairs that emulated the “Debí Tirar” album cover. He sang alone, with an empty chair next to him as dancers behind him enacted an electrocution after an apagón, or blackout — a direct reference to the 11 months it took for power to be restored on the island following Hurricane Maria in 2017.
The empty chair may have represented the more than 3,000 lives lost in the hurricane. (Just a few days ago, Martin wrote an open letter to Bad Bunny in Puerto Rican newspaper El Nuevo Día praising Bad Bunny for headlining “stages around the world carrying his language, his accent, and his story.”)
The pair then performed “El Apagón,” the 2017 song Bad Bunny released about the blackout, where Bad Bunny let out the expletive: “Puerto Rico está bien cabrón!” (basically “Puerto Rico is the shit!”).
Martin’s appearance at the Super Bowl halftime show makes sense thematically also because he became the face of Latin music’s U.S. crossover in the late 1990s, particularly with his smash single “Livin’ La Vida Loca.” While they didn’t perform the track on Sunday, Martin and Bad Bunny joined forces on “Cántalo” from Martin’s “Pausa” EP in 2020.
As the performance wound down, dancers carrying flags from across the Americas moved to an electrified rendition of “Café Con Ron,” backed by Los Pleneros de la Cresta. Bad Bunny later appeared holding a football and made his “God Bless America” statement, revealing a message written on the pigskin in his hands: “Together, we are America.”
The show ended with the hit “DTMF,” before the football field became a dance party while a fireworks show went off.
As has been widely noted, Sunday’s halftime show was the first primarily Spanish-language performance to take place at the Super Bowl, although Bad Bunny was a guest back in 2020, when he and J Balvin guested during Shakira and Jennifer Lopez’s headlining performance; Gloria Estefan, who performed during the halftime show in 1992 with Miami Sound Machine, is the only other previous Latin halftime performer.
While Bad Bunny’s performance was an exuberant and deeply coded celebration of Latin American culture, it was also a statement that culture is meant to be shared. Love is stronger than hate, together we are America — and everyone is welcome on the dance floor.
variety.com
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