NPR Music - Alt.Latino: Puerto Rico takes the field at the Bad Bunny Super Bowl

Episode Date: February 11, 2026

Bad Bunny's Super Bowl halftime show was many things: a time-traveling journey through the history of Puerto Rico, a statement of pan-American unity, and a masterpiece of cultural expression. This week, co-hosts Felix Contreras and Anamaria Sayre are joined by Isabella Gomez Sarmiento — who brings on-the-ground reporting from San Juan — to unpack the symbolism embedded in Bad Bunny's performance.See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for sponsorship and to manage your podcast sponsorship preferences.NPR Privacy Policy

Felix, are you there? I am here. I'm back. I have been off for a little while, as you know. You may not have been paying attention, because I know you've been disappeared. And I was channel surfing. All of a sudden, I'm like, hey, that looks like Ben Bunny. I'm like, wait, is that Bad Bunny at the Super Bowl? Is that Bed Bunny on a football field?

Okay, since I've been gone, so who's going to do the intro? I'm tired of doing it. Can you do it, please? From NPR music, this is Alt Latino and Felix Contreras. I'm Anna Maria Sayer, and let the chisemesem begin. Felix, this may be one of our most chisemey-packed episodes in a while. It's so much chisemes-me that we had to bring in help. And everyone's going to be like, who could it possibly be? Not the person who's been on for the past four weeks.

Welcome back, Issa. Grazie. I never miss out on chisemate, so thanks for the invite. Isabella Gomez-Sarviento joining us from Puerto Rico. Puerto Rico! You have to say it like Benito does. Puerto Rico. Okay, we're going to talk about Bad Bunny and the Super Bowl halftime show.

He just performed it last night. We're talking about this Monday afternoon. It's still fresh on our minds. Issa, you're in Puerto Rico right now. The ground zero of the Bad Bunny operation, his homeland, inspiration for all that he does. So I think it's only appropriate that you start us off. Okay.

Well, it's hard to overstate just how much it felt like San Juan was buzzing with excitement for this yesterday. I mean, all over the island, really all weekend, but especially all day Sunday, the day of the Super Bowl performance, it was like all anybody was talking about. Everyone was wearing their Benito Bull shirts. I saw someone wearing a lotteria shirt that had like an icon of Bad Bunny on it. and it said el halftime. I mean, it was just crazy all over the city,

a million watch parties. I ended up at this spot in Santorse called El Gandul, which is like a gathering hub. They do plena nights, bomba nights, rumba nights. Sunday was a rumba night. And after the first set of live music, it was like the air was thick with anticipation as people crowded into this bar,

people dancing, singing, crying, hugging, perriando, abrassandos. all of the above. Isa, I'm imagining this right now because I've been to, you know, Rumba Night to El Gandul, and that space is, it's packed, it's hot,

and it's always people out of their chairs dancing, so I can only imagine the escalation watching Benito in California last night. No, it was just absolutely out of this world. Then we ran over to Eskina Watusi a few blocks away, and it was just like every bar was showing it. People were on the streets. No one was just,

was paying attention to the football, to be completely clear. It was all about Benito for those 13 minutes. It was like the world stopped in San Juan and all anybody wanted to do was listen to their nene on the screen. You know, Issa, it's so lovely. I mean, unsurprising to hear that, but lovely to hear it because it feels like this really beautiful circular moment for what we saw last night, because really what it was was Benito again for the millionth time speaking for and directly to Puerto. But this time he had a worldwide audience. And what did he do?

He recreated Puerto Rico for that worldwide audience on the football field. I mean, that was almost guaranteed to happen, Felix. I mean, that's been like his core performance kind of like tie it all together. He literally brings his house from Puerto Rico around the world on tour. That's what he's doing right now. So of course we expected to see La Casita. But there was a ton of other Puerto Rican imagery that we saw from literally the first seconds of the performance.

I mean, Issa, what else was in there that you noticed? I mean, I think off the bat, part of what was so impactful was this representation of the sugarcane fields, the sugar cane plantation, and just this nod to the very start of Puerto Rico's colonization, to the laborers, to the day workers, the Hiwaros, who, my understanding, I talked to a historian, Israel, Melendez, Ayala, and, you know, he was talking about how this was an image that was really looked down upon for a long time in Puerto Rico. It was a word that was used in kind of a derogatory way. And here's Bad Bunny, just completely reclaiming it,

reclaiming the power of Puerto Rican and Caribbean and Latin labor on this giant global platform. What was fascinating to me was how, like, it was a time travel experience because, Issa, you were talking about, you know, the earliest days of the island being a colony. But then, you know, then all of a sudden we're in modern times, you know, or at least semi-modern times, people playing domino right there on a table. They're selling the ice water. There's sounding all kinds of stuff. Like all of a sudden, people started populating beyond the sugar cane.

And we're moving through this whole period. There's a reference to the social club in New York to acknowledge the diaspora. It was like this really amazing sort of time travel. Yeah, there's all these touchstones in just a matter of seconds. It's like layers upon layers of references of Puerto Rican life, diaspora life, Latino life at large. And I think that's what we see, right, is he opens the performance with kind of this broad, of image, image, image, image. Like you said, it's the laborers, it's the boxers.

It's, you know, all of these things that we could spend 30 minutes just decoding those first few seconds or minutes. And then what I loved is we break into a longer New York sequence. We break into then that longer wedding sequence. He kind of takes us to a place where we get to breathe around the storytelling a little bit. And that's where he really hits us over the head with those like so, quintessential, not only very Puerto Rican things, but like very Latino things. Like, to me, that wedding scene could have been Venezuela, it could have been Mexico,

it could have been Panama, like, you name it. And I don't think there was a Latino who couldn't feel identified with, you know, the dancing and the kid falling asleep on the chairs, which is maybe the most number one supreme Latin image of all time. Quintessential. Quintessential. That to me is where he really hit it out of the park in terms of taking the specificity of Puerto Rico visually and making it not only feel pan Latin, but really like universally, I mean, human, is it fair to say? Absolutely. And he starts creating these through lines too, like this focus on the young people, on the youth. As the music is changing, I think also trying to keep it grounded and where it comes from. We have this breakout into reggaeton.

and he, you know, he shouts out, this music of Los Barrios, like keeping the music very rooted in where it comes from, but showcasing how it's something that everybody can celebrate, no matter where you come from or what language you speak. And, I mean, I think one of the, well, I say one of, because there were some really, really striking visual and musical moments,

but one of the most striking moments to me that really encapsulates kind of what he has done and what he is now, how he's shifted, is the El Apagon moment. So we see him, you know, he moves through kind of this party sequence, the wedding, it's sweet, it's fun. And then we get to this more musically intense moment, the energy mounts. And you see him quite literally climbing up these light poles that I think are a pretty clear reference to to the Luma energy light poles that you'll see all around Puerto Rico. Now, I think it's important to note here that Luma Energy is the electrical company that basically controls the entire power grid and electrical infrastructure in Puerto Rico.

Important to note that because that is one of the most hot button, really important, difficult issues on the island, the issue of blackouts, of Apagones. And so he gets on top of that pole. He emphasizes this one line that says, everyone who wants to be Latino but they don't have

sasas a song and regetton which doesn't have a lot of which translates to everyone

in the world wants to be Latino but they don't have seasoning drumming or regetone I mean

that is one of those lines that it's like it doesn't matter what part of the continents you are from

that hits you in a certain way that moves you to sing in a certain way and for him

to stand not on some grand you know beautiful ornate stage or some kind of pedestal to stand on the literal symbol of a broken infrastructure of something that makes Puerto Rico seem weak or broken or all of the things that have been commented in recent months leading up to this to stand on that to proclaim the magnificence and the brilliance of what it is to be Latin American right now.

I mean, that felt really significant to me. Yeah, I just want to say, watching that imagery from San Juan, it was so striking to be with people who were watching their lived reality be reflected on screen. So, like, for context, we were talking about how I was at El Gandul, and the owner, Carmen Osorio Morales, she told me how much it meant to her to see the electricity grid is she represented because the day before the Super Bowl, El Gandul had three separate power outages. And they thought maybe they weren't going to be able to show the halftime show at all.

So I think to say that we've been victims of, a year, there were three Apagones. And today was a retort, to be the transmission. So I think for a lot of the people I talk to, it seemed like this sort of dissonance of being able to show the beauty of Puerto Rico, but the difficulty and the struggle of Puerto Rico openly was what really resonated with them the most. And, you know, Apagones obviously have been specifically an issue,

a struggle that we've come back to again and again when talking about Puerto Rico. Rico, but really, I mean, struggle with infrastructure, a lack of great governmental oversight. All of these things are something that I think are pretty universal in many ways in a lot of parts of Latin America. And that's the part where we start to see last night this opening up of Benito. And I think we've discussed this a little bit in last week's episode, Issa, and even the last year, where there's this shift happening that I think we're all currently witnessing where Benito is really starting to assume, you know, this helm, this role as Latin American speaker at large. And that's not something I think that he necessarily intended to do. I think there were a lot of

expectations placed on last night. I saw things saying that this was going to be like the Latino State of the Union. I don't think that he's still an artist. He's still expressing personal experience and love for his own home. But I think we have seen him a little more willingly assume some of that position. It's in how he's spoken, some of the language. He said he's speaking, you know, to everyone who's ever had to move last week at the Grammys. He's speaking to all of America Latina, all the Latinos. He said this a couple times. And then what we see, he mounts the stage. He gives this very big proclamation about, you know, how everyone wants to be Latino. And then he shifts into this incredible, I mean, visually stunning scene where you see people, all a whole mass of

people, dancers running down the field. And he takes the football and he says, God bless America. And then he says, Ocea, and he starts to name every single country in the Americas. And we see this whole barrage of these beautiful color of every flag that's in America, including flags from Jamaica and Guyana and all of these countries that aren't necessarily Spanish-speaking or Latino, including Canada, including the United States.

He wants to make, it seems, this very clear statement about what Americanness is. God bless America, Bolivia, Puerto Rico. And I think this reclamation of America, especially on a platform like the Super Bowl, where so much of the way we talk in the U.S. equates America to just this country in particular, the borders of this country and the identities of the people who live here and who gets to occupy and who doesn't get to occupy. So him explicitly running down the list of countries showing the flags, I mean, I can't imagine a more powerful political state.

And I can't imagine a time that this sort of reframing of who is American and what does America look like, I don't know that we've ever seen someone expand it so quickly and in such a vast and meaningful way. Well, there is a precedent for that, not in a live performance, but there is a president on record, one of the early Rubber Blades records where at the end of the song, he started shouting out Latin American countries as a reminder of just who the Americas are, that's the entire continent or at least the hemisphere. So there is a precedent on record, but to see it live, just as we experienced it when we went to see the show during a residency, for me, that was one of the most powerful parts of the residency is all the flags that came out during that time. And to see him recreate it last night, I got a little teary-eyed, I got to say.

Well, and Felix, I don't know if I would call that precedent. I think we have a couple other examples of that. I mean, I think of like songs from Kayetres, from René about America Latina United. I think about Anita Tishu and her song about, you know, Latin America United as well. But to release a song listing off different Latin American countries or talking about America Latina United Libre, Lo que sea, beautiful sentiment, beautiful. That art is amazing. But there is something so distinct and unprecedented, notably and importantly,

unprecedented about Benito standing on a stage with what it appears, at least numbers we have right now, maybe looking at least for the whole game as looking like it's maybe 135 million people watching something around there, on a very charged, conflicted United States stage to take that moment to de-center, really, the United States, and redefine or at least reaffirm in his eyes, in his vision. what America really means? I mean, that's bold. That's not just talking on your record about what America is. That's going to be an affront to a lot of people. And it was. I mean, President Trump pretty quickly after the show, you know, spoke on Truth Social saying that he thought it was a

horrible performance and something like an affront to what the greatness of this country is. Well, and I think what's interesting about this decentering is that he's been preparing us for this for months. I think. The fact that he didn't tour the U.S., as much as, you know, he said in that interview with Susie Exposito that part of it had to do with the ice rates. But I think it's part of this larger message of him showing that being a global superstar is no longer defined to how successful you are within the U.S. And that success outside of the U.S. is just as valid, if not more valuable to an artist like Bad Bunny. Yeah, that's an excellent point. And I think that it goes along with the point that Anna made of how, while Ruben Blades and other artists may have done it before, and Bad Bunny's case.

And in particular in last night, it elevates that to like levels like we've never seen before. Yeah, I'd agree. Certainly lots more to talk about, but let's take a break real quick. We'll be right back. Okay, we're back from break. But before we keep going, I do, I'm curious. Like, how did we all feel sitting there watching this performance? Because, I mean, Felix, you and I, we were texting a lot while it was happening as per always.

I think when Lady Gaga came out, I said, what? All caps. You know, it's one of those performances that I have to sit on because it was just, there was so much there. And I go back to a lot of performances, you know, because of the existence of YouTube, thank goodness that we can see some of this old stuff. But like I go back to these things, like some of these performances like going back to Live Aid in the 80s, right? I mean, there's so many iconic live performances. This is one of those performances that's going to last forever and there's going to be always a reason to go back to it and be inspired. by it, and I'm still processing it.

I'm still literally still thinking about all of the things that happened, what we saw, and I'm trying to sort out my feelings other than I was inspired by it. It didn't surprise me. I'm not fully developed yet. I would agree with that. I mean, I was running around reporting, so it was like my focus wasn't, I was just trying to make sure I had good tape and I was getting people's reactions. But I feel, I mean, I've been in Puerto Rico for a week now,

and I feel so incredibly humbled and privileged. to be able to get a little bit more of the context behind where this music comes from, how political it is, how resilient and resistant it is. And also just to understand, as someone who's not Puerto Rican, I'm Venezuelan, I identify as Carrivenia, and sort of understanding how much we all have to learn from what Puerto Rico and Bad Bunny is doing, but also just how much we all have to help and encourage each other. I mean, Anna, you've said this before, but being here, just like the reality of the mutual aid, in every aspect of the music, the culture, the survival of being Puerto Ricanio, and just how much

I think Bad Bunny is now positioning that to be a relationship and a sort of holding hands across the entire continent. I mean, it's really beyond what I can describe in words. It's the drug of the island, Issa. But really, I mean, that is something that I have actually literally said multiple times. I look at Puerto Rico and yes, I am on the record like obsessed with Puerto Rico, but for a reason that I look at Puerto Rico and I see them. I see Borico has an example for how we all should be. I mean, in the face of obstacles, in the face of challenge, what I have seen again and again is meeting that with love and with community and with mutual support and with family and appreciation. And that's something that I just, I actually feel

quite comfortable generalizing that about the island because it's just been confirmed and confirmed and confirmed. And what we see with Bad Bunny every single time and we saw it so plainly last night is that he just, his strength is that he just embodies that. Like he embodies those messages of love and unity. Like to me, his art and what we saw, it's not his invention, this idea that love is more powerful than hate or that we're stronger together or that what is difficult makes us more powerful. It's just that that's what he was raised on on the island. That's what you're taught. And so I think he just communicates that really well, musically, visually, in what he chooses to say. And when he says it, he's just a brilliant vessel for that. And that was what, I mean, talking about feeling, I mean,

I'm still, I too, Issa didn't really have time to properly process because I was downloading into into writing right away. But I need to, after this, take some time, eat an ice cream and think about the world. But the point is that it's exactly that same thing. I think it's just that he channels being Puerto Rican so, so well. And I will add this. I mean, I'm privileged.

I've seen what I consider the greats. I've seen Prince. I've seen Springsteen. I've seen James Brown. I've seen Celia Cruz. Artists like that, they have it. They have that thing where they communicate with their fans at almost an existential level. It's just so profound.

And that's what I saw. I've watched him grow. Like we covered his first record, Jasmine Garst and I. We talked to him back then. We've watched him grow and it become this entertainer, this musician, this persona, this live entity. When he performs, it's like it's white hot. And that I think is what really struck me.

One of the things that struck me last night is like he's, we all know that. We all knew he had it. But I really, like, I put him in that category. And especially when it comes with the Super Bowl, because one of my favorite Super Bowl performances of all time was Prince, which a lot of people consider the greatest Super Bowl performance of all time. It's on that level now, man.

That's where he is. And yet he still manages to surprise us. I mean, I don't think anybody expected the guests that he brought out last night. I mean, as aforementioned, Lady Gaga to me was like, I'm not in my wildest dreams, and I feel like at this point I could write five textbooks. about this man. I mean, at first it was almost like, who?

And then it was like, Gaga? I wasn't sure. I was like, who's the blonde lady singing? Exactly, exactly. And I think a lot has been written already, and I'm sure more will be written about how maybe a lot of people assume Lady Gaga was there in a way to pander or appeal to an Anglo pop audience, a more mainstream white pop audience.

Honestly, to me, and this feeling only kept building. as then later Ricky Martin came out, which we can discuss more about that in a second. But like, there was a very strong queer subtext to me that these were the two guests that he picked. And I think with Gaga in particular, like, I immediately thought back to when she did the Super Bowl in 2017 and she did born this way. And it was such an important moment for the LGBTQ community. And I think that Gaga, like, her ascent to stardom was loaded with so much gender interrogation. I mean, Anderson Cooper literally asked her about the biology of her body because there were so many rumors about her biological sex and her gender. And I think that she, what she represents to queer communities and what she has represented as a pop star for so much of her career, it felt to me a little bit like, A, I think Bad Bunny is a documented fan of Lady Gaga.

So I think he kind of just brought her because he likes her. But B, also a nod to the fact that some of Bad Bunny's earliest fans were part. part of the queer community who embraced him when he wore skirts and painted his nails. And there was all of this homophobia sort of charged at him from Latin America. I think now we talk about Bad Bunny so much in the context of Puerto Rican politics and immigration and ICE. But at the beginning of his career, a lot of his most political statements were about gender expression and sexual fluidity. And Lady Gaga is sort of one of the four mothers of that in contemporary pop music. And I would jump in here also as a as a Lady Gaga. defender. And as someone, I'm actually not really much of a fan of her music generally, but of this specific choice to include her because there is a power, I think, a very apparent power to choosing to bring someone on so that they can cross over to say, hey, here's your hit song, but guess what, I'm going to show you. I don't have to say it,

but I'm going to show you how it sounds better in Salsa. And that to me is like such a key tenant, right, of what he does. It fits so neatly into his thesis where he's like, I'm not going to worry about what other people are saying that I can't do or that what we as Latinos can't do. I'm going to show you what we can do and that actually we make it better. We do it with sason. We do it with, you know, this extra energy. And that fit also really nicely into this wedding scene, right? Which the theme of this of this hit song at the end of the day of Lady Gaga's hit song is this idea of of the fleetingness of life, of always, you know, staying close to the people you love. And I think that that is just generally something that is prevalent in Latin America.

I mean, Latin America in life is not easy. And it's definitely not guaranteed. And it's in some pretty, like, confronting and scary ways at times. It feels fleeting. And I think that's why we have such, you know, a love for family and take, I mean, Puerto Rico is like the prime example of this. You take any excuse to party on the island when you can. I mean, in the most beautiful ways. And so I think that really what she says in that song, actually,

it almost feels Latin in its text, in its subject matter, more than even in the salsa arrangement. I thought that was a really actually intricate, smart way to show that we're all more aligned than maybe we think we are. And honestly, that was the only way that I could pass that song because I am a big Lady Gaga fan. and that is the one song on that album that I just can't stand. And this arrangement, and that sort of new life really worked.

Well, not everything, but it sounded better, I'll say that. And I thought it was so cool of Gaga to be there. Yes, absolutely. And Ricky Martin? I mean, I could write a thesis. I think so the thing about Ricky Martin that really, I mean, part of it is like, you know, Ricky Martin has been a bad bunny supporter from the beginning. He did uncredited vocals on his very first album on the song Caro, which was a very queer music video.

And it was a hook about, like, being happy and not causing harm to anyone by expressing yourself. But I think what really stood out to me about Ricky Martin doing Locale PASsoa Hawaii is that Ricky Martin in so many ways is the face of a colonized pop star to me. He was the face of a Puerto Rican artist forced to cross over. And so to have Ricky Martin get the chance to sing. anti-colonial anthem in Spanish at the Super Bowl. It was just like allowing him to reclaim. It was one of the most powerful things I've ever seen

at the Super Bowl for sure, but maybe just in pop culture, period. And I think it's really important to note that a week ago, just about a week ago right after Benito won Grammy album of the year. I mean, he published an op-ed in El Nuevo Dia saying, effectively, he actually said, this achievement is for a generation you taught that their identity is non-negotiable and that success is not at odds with authenticity. I mean, what a beautiful sentiment coming from, like you mentioned, Issa,

a man who was pigeoned into a hole of what was considered widely. consumable. It's really beautiful that, you know, he's speaking, oh, yes, to a generation, but it's clear that he's receiving that message himself. And then we get to see him actually act on, on that feeling, on that example last night. That's, I mean, it's beautiful. Okay, I was on social media this morning, and I saw a friend of a friend was the person who contracted all the planeros. And he had posted on Facebook, he was so beside himself, so proud that he was able to be part of that. And he had, there were 30 planeros in total

sprinkled out throughout the performance. And it hit right at the right time. I mean, when you think, Felix, about how he's been using this imagery of Plena and Los Pleneros, which, you know, that refers to the specific band or the group, Los Pleneros of La Cresta that he's had with him throughout all of his shows for this album, the residency and now the tour.

Obviously, he expanded that. And that felt like a really beautiful encapsulation, Felix, of what he did last night, ultimately, which was take something really, really Puerto Ricanly specific, something really local, which is plena. I mean, you can't get more local to Puerto Rico. And he used it as a vehicle to make it the most global and inclusive moment in the set. Because when you think about, you know, how he's been using Los Plenados on tour, they're always the ones who come out and say the most resistant things, or they come out and they do the most, you know, culturally specific homage. Like in Mexico, they were the ones who sang Cielito Lindo.

They've done similar things in other countries. And then they'll make comments about, you know, United Latin America. Like, he kind of uses them as those voices of like the greatest voices of resistance, the most forceful and explicit voices. And so to then bring out all these plereros, as he's simultaneously bringing out all these banderas, he's showing American overall American unity felt like this really, like, brilliant and intricate way to say, hey, Puerto Rican resistance, it's actually so perfectly applicable for American resistance at large and for this redefinition of America that I'm doing here. Absolutely. And I think,

you know, something that's been interesting from the island point of view of all of this was, like, I've been going to plena workshops and planassos all week. And I mean, this doesn't even begin to scratch the surface, but not only is it one of the most political genres, but it's also, a lot of the classes I went to, it was like a lot of young women, a lot of queer people, like it really captures the sort of changing social norms. So for him to employ it in this moment of like expanding from being a Puerto Rican leader to being an American leader, expanding that definition in real time through the plena, through the imagery, I mean, it really captures the essence of what the music is and what it stands for.

As we said, everybody's talking about it today in so many different ways and I suspect we'll be talking about this for a very, very long time. It was that kind of performance. And I mean, we can't leave without saying, guys, he wiped his Instagram last night. There's a new era loading.

Dare I ask you guys at all, like, what do you think he's going to do next? Because think about the year that he's had. I mean, the drop the record, he did the tiny desk, He did the residency, the Grammy, the Super Bowl. Like, what does he do next, man? Retire and move to the montagna?

That's what I do. He's been threatening that for so long. But, you know, I think what's so awesome about Bad Bunny is that it's impossible to predict what he does next. Like, he always keeps us on our toes. You know, we've been listening to this guy for 10 years, and it's like every year we're having this conversation of, oh, my God, what could he possibly do to surprise us next? And yet he always delivers something. So you know what? I'm just, I'm excited to see what it is, whenever it is.

I hope he takes some time, though. I don't even try anymore. I just, I come completely submitting to whatever it will be. I don't even need to know. I'm just excited to see what it is. I'd like to think that he would be, you know, lifted up into the sky on a, like a sea of butterflies. Like a- You mean Jesus?

No, like a Garcia-Marcus character, right? some kind of magic realism moment where he just like is lifted up. This is just you imagining him but the sphere. At the Las Vegas thing. I already know what this is. Yeah. You're like, and he could take on this new thing like Bad Bunny dead.

No. And he's going to keep the Grateful Dead American song going for the next week. Yeah, like the crossover. Yeah, I agree. Like there's no way to know and it's one of the great figures to watch and try to anticipate and just enjoy, man. That's the whole thing about this. It's like, just enjoy what he brings.

You have been listening to All Latino from NPR Music. Our audio editor is Noah Caldwell. The executive producer of NPR music is Saraya Mohamed. The executive director of NPR music is Sonali Metta. Special thanks, as always, to Isabel Gomez-Arviento for blessing us with her presence and her ideas. Thank you, Isa. Muah.

Los Guero much, much. I'm Phyllis Contreras. And I'm Ana Maria Serre. And thank you for listening.