Photo by Eric Rojas
Audio By Carbonatix
Last week, the NFL announced that Puerto Rican superstar Bad Bunny will be headlining the Super Bowl 60 halftime show in Santa Clara, California.
Fans of the reggaeton artist, whose real name is Benito Ocasio Martinez, quickly erupted in excitement about the announcement, which came on the heels of his sold-out residency in Puerto Rico. On the other hand, MAGA influencers and their followers have fumed over the decision, blasting him as a “Trump hater” and an “anti-ICE activist,” with many noting that he doesn’t have any songs in English.
As the debate over his performance rages on, Florida’s first lady Casey DeSantis (and wife of Republican Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis) has one quick question for everyone.
“Not trying to start anything here, but honestly… who exactly is Bad Bunny?” she wrote in a post on X (formerly known as Twitter) alongside a bunny emoji. (She was responding to her allegedly 80s metal-loving husband, who said he was still holding out hope for Metallica to headline the halftime show).
It…didn’t take long for people to fire back.
“Bad Bunny is quite literally the most-streamed artist in Florida,” replied Steven Walker, a reporter for the Orlando Sentinel.
“me when I swear I’m not going to start anything,” another person responded.
“I guess tallahassee is 8 hours from miami,” a third wrote.
As noted by a handful of people, Bad Bunny is among the most-streamed artists in the world.
In 2024, he was Spotify’s most-streamed artist worldwide (sorry, Swifties!). His residency finale show, which recently streamed on Amazon Music, was the most-watched single-artist performance in the history of the platform.
Bad Bunny is also no stranger to politics, having long advocated for human rights for his native island and addressing issues of gentrification. Recently, he admitted to skipping touring across the U.S. because of the potential for ICE presence at his concerts.
As Vanessa Diaz wrote in her Rolling Stone article “Bad Bunny’s Super Bowl Performance Is Historic — And Controversial. Here’s Why,” the halftime show has “major social and political implications.”
She emphasized that backlash to the announcement reflects “centuries-long sentiments of Latinos as perpetual foreigners,” as well as the fact that “most Americans still do not know that Puerto Rico, where Bad Bunny was born, raised, and still lives, is a territory of the U.S., and Puerto Ricans have U.S. citizenship.”
“So, every single one of his 31 residency shows took place in the U.S. By forcing residents of the 50 states to come to him, his residency de-centered what the U.S. mainland means by making Puerto Rico itself the mainland for his shows,” Diaz writes. “Similarly, Bad Bunny as the Super Bowl halftime performer is an opportunity to decenter a white, English-speaking mainstream and grapple with the fact that Latin music — in Spanish — is mainstream.”
