Puerto Ricans are jazzed for Bad Bunny’s Spanish-language Super Bowl performance. They’re not the only ones.
By Alli Rosenbloom, CNN
(CNN) — When Bad Bunny takes the Super Bowl stage on Sunday, he will be making history as the first Spanish-language artist to headline the halftime show.
That has Puerto Ricans bursting with anticipation — and pride.
“I think it is a pride – a huge pride – that it will be that way, in our language, with our slang, with music that will represent us, with an artist that represents us,” RaiNao, a recording artist who has collaborated with Bad Bunny, told CNN.
While conservatives, including President Donald Trump, have been whipping up outrage against Bad Bunny’s performance, the roar of support from Puerto Ricans and others who love the artist’s music and what he represents has been equally loud, if not louder.
That only grew after Bad Bunny swept the Grammys last weekend, winning best global music performance, best música urbana album and becoming the first Spanish-language artist to win album of the year for “DeBÍ TiRAR MáS FOToS.”
He was also lauded by his fans for speaking out against the Trump administration’s anti-immigration actions, making heartfelt comments launched by the words, “ICE out.”
Bad Bunny long ago committed to singing only in Spanish. He told Vanity Fair in 2023 that he would “never” sing in English “just because someone says I need to do it to reach a certain audience.”
“I think in Spanish, I feel in Spanish, I eat in Spanish, I sing in Spanish,” he told the magazine.
He has now put out seven studio albums, without a single full song in English.
“He didn’t move toward the world; he made the world move toward us,” Nydia Velazquez (D-NY) said in an interview featured in CNN’s “Bad Bunny and the Halftime Show: Rhythms of Resistance,” streaming now.
Breaking the mold
Bad Bunny has already made a cameo at the Super Bowl halftime show — back in 2020, when Jennifer Lopez and Shakira co-headlined.
The show had searing visuals, including a segment during their performance of “Let’s Get Loud” featuring children singing from cage-like structures on the field — a statement on US immigration policy.
Shakira and JLo, both of whom sing in both English and Spanish, had touted their performance as one that would seek to unify and one that would, Shakira said at the time, show “what a relevant force the Latin community is in this country.”
It was met with mixed reviews and over 1,000 FCC complaints, some claiming the show was not family friendly.
Ahead of the Super Bowl this Sunday, Turning Point USA announced it would deploy its own counterprogramming, in the form of an “All American Halftime Show” featuring performers Kid Rock, Brantley Gilbert, Lee Brice and Gabby Barrett.
Trump has already said he is “anti-them,” referring to Bad Bunny, as well as show openers Green Day, who are also critics of his administration. House Speaker Mike Johnson has said the choice of Bad Bunny is “a terrible decision.”
“It sounds like he’s not someone who appeals to a broader audience,” he said in October.
Bad Bunny has taken it all in stride. In October, he stood on the “Saturday Night Live” stage and cheekily told viewers who didn’t know Spanish that they had four months to learn the language.
On TikTok, many have taken up the challenge, with countless videos of non-Spanish language speakers trying to perfect their pronunciation so they can sing along once he takes the stage.
Vanessa Díaz, professor and co-author of “P FKN R: How Bad Bunny Became the Global Voice of Puerto Rican Resistance” disputes that language is a barrier to enjoying music, a case she says is made by the fact that Bad Bunny has many English-speaking fans.
“They still like his music even if they don’t understand it all. His lyrics are important, obviously, but his music is more than just lyrics,” she told CNN. “The musicality, the messaging in his videos, and in his performances. The many components of his artistry have created many fans who don’t speak Spanish.”
Bad Bunny’s halftime show will mark his first major performance in front of a large audience on the US mainland since his 2022 tour. He did not bring his 2025-2026 concert tour to the US mainland, he said, for fear that ICE would raid the concert venues.
“Bad Bunny is an artist of resistance and refusal,” said Dr. Petra Rivera-Rideau, who co-wrote the book with Díaz. And that does not appear to be changing any time soon.
The-CNN-Wire
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CNN’s Gonzalo Jimenez, Isa Cardona, Norma Galena, Rebecca Mulford, Raza Naqvi and Emma Schwartz contributed to this report
