Visit an iconic bar, take a shot, wink at a camera and become the first artist to sing primarily in Spanish during one of the most recognizable sporting events in the world. If you’re thinking of Bad Bunny’s to-do list for the 2026 Super Bowl Halftime Show, you’re right on the money — mostly.
That iconic bar he visited? A set piece on the field of Levi’s Stadium, built to recreate the Caribbean Social Club, a staple of Puerto Rican culture in Brooklyn. What’s more, Toñita, the owner of the club, was the one to give Bad Bunny the shot as he sang the line in “NuevaYol” which shouts her out.
Toñita’s appearance was just a slice of the celebration of culture viewers across the country watched during an otherwise uneventful Super Bowl. Bad Bunny, whose real name is Benito Antonio Martínez Ocasio, wore a Britney Spears-esque headset microphone as he eased into his performance walking through tall grasses, a motif hinting at the Puerto Rican landscape and its colonial history.
From rural farmers to a Y2K fashion revival at a nail salon among the grasses, it’s almost as if he walked through the eras of Latino culture as he delivered a performance that felt more like a block party with your favorite neighbors than a staged production.
“As someone who is Latina, I really respect him for putting a lot of cultural references you might only understand if you grew up Latino. Him giving cameos to real businesses made me so happy,” Rocio Castellanos, a senior at UO, said.
Ocasio took time to pay homage to Puerto Rican artists who came before him, like Daddy Yankee and Ricky Martin, the latter of whom joined Bad Bunny on the field. Backed by white plastic chairs and banana trees resembling Bad Bunny’s most recent album cover, Martin sang “LO QUE LE PASÓ A HAWAii,” which compares the experience of Hawaii gaining U.S. statehood to the gentrification that could happen in Puerto Rico.
Perhaps most powerful and topical to the current political environment was Bad Bunny’s performance of “El Apagón,” which translates to “The Power Outage.” Aided by dancers dangling from short-circuiting telephone poles, it’s a powerful reminder of the struggles Puerto Rico has had with frequent power outages, infrastructure damage and lack of U.S. support in the aftermath of hurricanes battering the island.
Between bodegas, Puerto Rican independence flags and piraguas (shaved ice with flavored syrup), the people were the heart and soul of the performance. At times, dancers were supporting the singer himself as they caught him falling backward from a building, a further emphasis on community catching you when you fall.
Flashing a heart with his hands, Bad Bunny’s love for his culture was palpable. But that wasn’t the only love in the air.
A couple who invited Bad Bunny to their wedding got more than they bargained for as they had a pseudo-wedding party (cake and all) on one of the biggest stages in the world. Despite that, the wedding still felt like theirs instead of just a stunt, celebrating with their community and having their moment.
“It was honestly like the best halftime show I’ve ever seen. I didn’t watch the game at all but I turned on my laptop to watch the show. I loved when the bride and the groom got married because it was real and they’re from the area my dad grew up in,” Destinee Kaya, a junior at UO, said.
Bad Bunny introduced the only English-language singing of the night by soulfully crooning “esto es lo que tú quería?,” a line from his song, “MONACO,” which translates to “is this what you wanted?” A subtle dig toward the outcry of the show being sung almost entirely in Spanish introduced Lady Gaga’s surprise appearance singing a remixed version of her hit “Die With a Smile.”
The performance comes on the heels of his Grammy win for Album of the Year, becoming the first Spanish-language album to do so. That win didn’t go unmentioned as he took a respite from the party to cut to a family watching his winning speech. Bad Bunny handed what appeared to be his actual Grammy to a kid, meant to represent a younger version of the singer.
“I wanted to cry happy tears. It meant so much that a Latin American artist put on a show this big knowing all the things people said to him and what’s going on in the world,” Kaya said. “He didn’t diss America, and still spread a message of love.”
All of this was conveyed to us as viewers through camera work that made viewers feel like they were a part of the party and on the field with him. Sitting on my couch, I dodged punches real boxers exchanged, weaved through a wedding reception and crashed through a ceiling.
The show climaxed as the once brassy and plucky instrumentals were stripped down to a rhythmic beat from bongo drums. Dancers snaked through the tall grasses with marching band precision in both formation and dance moves, followed by flag bearers tearing through the corridor.
After declaring “God Bless America,” Bad Bunny proceeded to shout out each American country (and yes, that includes Canada) as he was flanked by the flags of the Americas. With the angle viewers saw him at, the flags looked like they were coming out of him — literally emanating Latin American pride.
A football that said “together, we are America,” found itself being spiked by Bad Bunny before segueing into “DtMF,” a song about not taking enough photos of moments that would become treasured memories. I have to imagine this performance that exudes love, joy and culture would fall into the category of a treasured memory, and there’s no shortage of photos from it.
“I was so excited when it was announced he was doing the Super Bowl, but also nervous because of the state of our country right now,” Castellanos said. “I’m glad the NFL backed him up despite how much backlash there was.”
As they say, music is a universal language. Amid a mass deportation campaign against immigrants that sows fear and hatred, Bad Bunny’s show defied all of that and emphasized the love that should underscore our shared humanity, if not our identities as Americans.
Like Bad Bunny said in his Grammy speech and later had plastered on a billboard during the halftime show, “the only thing more powerful than hate is love.” If there’s one thing viewers take away from this show, it should be that.
