I donāt think people understand what a monumental experience it is for Latines to see Bad Bunny perform at the Super Bowl.
Itās not even that weāre proud that one of our own is up thereāwe were proud when Shakira and JLo performed a few years ago. Itās not even that heās the first solo Hispanic artist to headline the halftime show with Spanish-only music. There are so many Latine artists I can think of that wouldāve made us so proud to see on that stage for the mere act of representing one of our cultures (because there are many Latine cultures, not just one, even if we do share a lot of commonalities).
But the thing about Benito isā¦that man is family, yāall. I donāt even know how to explain it. Thatās my fucking cousin performing at the Super Bowl.
And we donāt feel that way about every Latine artist, okay? Itās a rare thing, what he has done. Itās not that he has united Latines across the globe with his music, but that he has done it with music that is so specifically Puerto Rican. The genre, obviously, but also the slang and references to the island in most of his songs, especially those calling out the ongoing history of colonization in Puerto Rico.
With a few key exceptions like that line in āEl ApagĆ³nāātodos quieren ser latinos pero les falta sazĆ³n (everyone wants to be latino but they lack flavor)āmost of his music does not talk about what itās like to be Latino, but whatās itās like to be Puerto Rican. Thereās a stark difference there. In perfect Boricua fashion, Bad Bunny is letting everyone know where the fuck heās from every chance he gets. Heās not going to let you forget it. Heās Puerto Rican before heās Latino, and thatās a distinction we have lost sight of. Outside of the United States, most Latinos donāt identify as such. We claim our countries and thatās it. But because of the Othering we face in the United States, we have bonded under this group identity as a means of survival and community in a country that criminalizes our existence at every turn, but in doing so, we get this homogeneity assigned to us that erases our cultural individuality. Our music gets grouped under the term āLatin musicā even though there are dozens of different genres that fall under that umbrella term, each with its own history and influences. Our cultural practices are labeled as one āLatin cultureā when thereās 33 countries in Latin America and the Caribbean.
Hispanic artists get drowned in that faux homogeneity sometimes (notice how I said Hispanic and not Latinoāthatās because the two are not mutually exclusive. Brazilians are Latinos but they speak Portuguese, not Spanish, therefore theyāre not Hispanic). Their music is in Spanish, so most of their fans are Hispanic, obviously, and they embrace the unity of our different countries and their shared commonalities, but sometimes, as proud as they are to be from where they come, you can forget where theyāre actually from. This is mainly because they sing in Spanish, but they donāt sing about their respective homelands. Of course, they donāt have to, but itās still worth mentioning.
And then thereās Benito Antonio MartĆnez Ocasio who so assertively proclaims his Puerto Rican-ness, thanking his mother in his songs and Grammy-winning speeches for birthing him in the island he ardently loves.
Thereās patriotism, and then thereās Boricua pride. Itās a whole different level.
And yet, it is that almost unbelievable level of cultural specificity in his music with which Bad Bunny has united Latines across the worldānot despite its specificity but because of it. By singing about Puerto Rico, he has managed to capture what Latines feel like being from their respective country.
I canāt help but think about that outro in āLa Mudanza,ā the last song on the track list of DeBĆ TiRAR MĆ”S FOToS: āDe aquĆ nadie me saca / De aquĆ yo no me muevo / Diles que esta es mi casa / Donde naciĆ³ mi abuelo / Yo soy de P fuckinā Rā (Nobodyās kickinā me out of here / Iām not going anywhere / Tell them this is my home / Where my grandfather was born / Iām from P fuckinā R). That whole song is an ode to his family history, how he came to even exist. It criticizes the displacement and gentrification of Puerto Rico, boldly alluding to the independence movement against U.S. rule. That whole album is the product of pure love as an act of resistance. And it has resonated with all Latines across various generations and our shared history of memory and displacement.
But that last line: āIām from P fuckinā R.ā I have seen so many TikToks of people singing that line with their whole chest (I do, too, every time it comes on), with the added caveat on screen that theyāre not Puerto Rican, and yet they sing that line at the top of their lungs, not because itās part of the song, but because they feel itāBad Bunnyās pride and love for Puerto Rico is that contagious, that powerful, enough to transcend imaginary borders.
So, towards the end of his halftime show, when he starts naming every country in the entire continent of America, including the United States and Canada, thatās not him dropping his cultural specificity and embracing his Latinidad all of the sudden. That is him making a statement. That is Bad Bunny wielding specificity and extending it to all of us, banding all of us together, not as Latinos, but as āAmericans.ā
