When Bad Bunny was announced as the Superbowl LX halftime show performer, I knew all hell would break loose. From rappers calling Roc Nation demonic to MAGA supporters claiming Bad Bunny is everything but a child of God, it felt like every weapon was formed against the Puerto Rican superstar. But then–slowly, very slowly–the tide began to change. He won grammy after grammy, dominating categories with an album that reminded us all of our respective communities and what we wish we could savor once more. Benito’s win cemented something for his community and mine: sacrifice should never come to the detriment of our connection with our heritage.
As a Black woman, I was supporting Benito’s performance no matter the language. Whether it be Spanish, English, sign language or an interpretive dance, I was going to support an artist who stood ten toes down in his roots, community, and resistance against white and English-speaking centered culture. I was unsure of how his performance would unfurl or what he would be talking about (I don’t know a lick of Spanish) but like millions of other viewers, I was not disappointed in the slightest.
Building on last year’s halftime show, Bad Bunny’s performance rang as a call for resistance of joy in these dire and divisive times. In a media landscape that often curates a world without people of color, Benito curated his world: multicultural, joyous, and undeniably excellent. From the slow and sensual dance moves, gifting his inner child the fruits of his labor, to guest appearances from real life small businesses like LA’s very own Villa’s Tacos, I was teary-eyed.
This halftime performance was a love letter from Benito to Puerto Rico, a colony owned but not taken care of by the United States. And while others shared the same sentiment as I did for his performance, I can’t help but to feel as though the meaning of this performance and the times we are in are slipping through our hands as a culture. We have entered a time where compliance to fascistic rule is prioritized over building our collective potential, where performance of protest is prioritized over strategic community engagement.
Like Bad Bunny says, the only thing more powerful than hate is love. But there has to be militance and initiative in that love. We have to love ourselves, our culture, and our heritage. We have to lift as we climb, shifting the word American from an ideology to a simple place of birth. Because there’s something every Hispanic, Black, Asian, and especially Indigenous American knows: we will never be “American” enough. We will always live in that hyphen, so why not be more than that? Why not defy the mainstream and bring who we are and where we come from to the world’s biggest stage–there is no one better to do it but us.
¡Viva Puerto Rico!
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