You don’t have to speak Spanish to understand that Bad Bunny’s blockbuster Super Bowl halftime show was a powerful one: rooted in place, history, politics, and most importantly, joy.
But if you’re not intimately familiar with the oeuvre or the island, there are a lot of smaller details you might have missed — from all of the very Puerto Rican activities in the intro to Bad Bunny’s light blue Puerto Rican flag.
As Vox’s biggest Bad Bunny enthusiast — his full name is Benito Antonio Martínez Ocasio — I collected some of the most striking details from his history-making performance: the first Super Bowl halftime show to be performed entirely in Spanish, building on Shakira and Jennifer Lopez’s joint performance in 2020.
Here are the eight can’t-miss moments from Benito’s show:
This is my Super Bowl. I’m Bad Bunny’s biggest fan here at Vox. I’ve been listening to Benito since 2016 — back in his bald stud era! — to the point where several of my coworkers texted me minutes after it was announced he was performing for the Super Bowl. I’ve seen him perform several times, including at his iconic residency in Puerto Rico last year. To a casual listener, it may seem that Bad Bunny only sings about bagging baddies. That’s partially true. But for any Puerto Rican, from those on the archipelago to in the diaspora, there are deeper layers. I wanted y’all to feel like you, too, are in on the secret.
1. Why Bad Bunny’s jersey has the number 64
Benito’s jersey, emblazoned with one of his last names, also features the initial number of reported deaths in the aftermath of Hurricane Maria in 2017 — likely a gross undercount. That number, 64, became the center of debate, as rural parts of the archipelago suffered from immense infrastructural damage and lack of electricity and clean water. The number was also used to minimize the severity of the storm. In the months following the devastation, the governor revised the toll to 2,975 deaths. Some studies put excess deaths even higher at 4,645.
A fixture of his latest era, the casita is a pink, traditionally Puerto Rican-style concrete house. You’ll find these literally anywhere on the island, but they’re most popular in rural areas. Debí Tirar Más Fotos chronicles the challenges of forced gentrification caused by the island’s colonial status. While the beaches and fancy apartments in San Juan may be swooped up by wealthy tourists and short-term rental hosts, what remains are the old homes in the mountains — many of which have been abandoned because of unclear wills, inability to afford maintenance, and emigration for better opportunities. (This is the case for my own family, sadly.)
Bad Bunny’s celebration of the casita as a party destination, full of celebrities from Pedro Pascal and Cardi B to Alix Earle and Young Miko, cements the fight to stay on the island. It’s also a fun continuation of his residency last summer on the island, where anyone who’s anyone had an invite.
Another fun fact about the casita: When Bad Bunny falls through the roof into that blue room, it’s a callback to the music video visualizers for his 2020 album, YHLQMDLG. He didn’t get to tour that album, so this is an easter egg for some of his real OGs.
3. “Nuevayol” with Toñita
Debí Tirar Más Fotos is a love letter to the diaspora as much as it is to those on the island. New York has the highest density of Puerto Ricans outside of Puerto Rico, living in neighborhoods like Washington Heights and Alphabet City. One of Bad Bunny’s most special “if you know, you know” guests is Toñita, the owner of the Caribbean Social Club in Williamsburg, who has a shoutout in the song. High-key, it’s one of my favorite places to hang, dance, and play dominoes — a home away from home.
4. The kid with the Grammy
One of the most powerful moments of tonight’s performance was when Bad Bunny leaves the party scene in New York and passes his Grammy for best album to a child who looks uncannily similar to Liam Ramos, the 5-year-old boy who was taken by Immigration and Customs Enforcement as bait. Benito’s speech against ICE plays in the background, but I think this is more of a symbolic gesture of passing on the mantle to the next generation. In either case, it speaks to faith and hope for the future.
5. The jibaros on the powerlines
After Hurricane Maria, there was a new push to “revitalize” Puerto Rico’s economy and infrastructure. Luma, a private electricity company, became the provider for the territory. But it didn’t work out as planned: Blackouts became the new norm. All the while, rich Americans moved to benefit from newly created tax breaks as an austerity regime closed down schools. “El Apagón” sings of this tension, of the desire for outsiders to leave, but also an acknowledgment that “todos quieren ser latinos” — or “everyone wants to be Latino.”
The men with the straw hats and white clothes are jibaros, a traditional subsistence farmer common in the mountains who typically use a curved machete to harvest crops and cut through sugarcane. They also have a kind of folk music that’s used as the basis of many Puerto Rican cries (“lelolai”). The jibaros climbing on the powerlines are a reflection of the changing times and how they’re getting left behind.
6. Ricky Martin and “Lo Que Pasó a Hawaii”
Ricky Martin — who is as much of a Puerto Rican icon as Marc Anthony, Jennifer Lopez, and Roberto Clemente — is most famous for crossing over into the American market with songs like “She Bangs” and “Livin’ la Vida Loca.” He first found fame through the boy band Menudo, but it really wasn’t until he started singing in English that he found international success.
Martin singing “Lo Que Paso a Hawaii” is a reclamation of his heritage. It’s a song dedicated to those who stay and those who are forced to leave and change. Bad Bunny performed for the Super Bowl entirely in Spanish, something that would have been unthinkable even a decade ago. Ricky Martin has always been proudly Puerto Rican, but it feels different when he can sing in his mother tongue alone.
As Marissa Martinez wrote for Vox earlier this week, explaining the rise of calls for Puerto Rican independence:
She and other fans will be ready to shout if she sees la bandera con azul celeste, the once-suppressed 1895 light-blue version of the current flag associated with the pro-independence movement that Bad Bunny featured in the music video for “La Mudanza.”
“They killed people here for waving the flag,” he sings on that track. “That’s why now I take it everywhere.”
8. God Bless America — all of America
A quick Spanish lesson, first: If you’re talking about US citizens, you might think that “americano” is the direct translation. It’s actually “estadounidense” (literally United States-ian). Anyway, my point here is that “americano” encompasses all of the Americas, from Canada down to Argentina. Bad Bunny closed his performance with a shoutout to all of the Americas, from Chile to Canada, and a procession of flags. On the jumbotron behind him, a simple message shone: “The only thing more powerful than hate is love.”
