Why Bad Bunny doesn't owe us anything at the Super Bowl halftime show

At the Grammys Feb. 1, Bad Bunny said "ICE Out" while delivering his first acceptance speech of the night and got a standing ovation. When he later made history as the first Spanish-language album to win album of the year, he dedicated his Grammy Award to "all the people who had to leave their homeland, their country, to follow their dreams."

Two days later, White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt criticized Bad Bunny for "trying to demonize law enforcement." Later in the week, Leavitt said President Donald Trump "would much rather prefer a Kid Rock performance over Bad Bunny," referring to the Turning Point USA counter-halftime show.

Ahead of Super Bowl 60, all eyes were on the 31-year-old reggaeton artist and not just for his music.

"He probably won't even have the most political halftime show on immigration," said Sam Sanders, host of KCRW's "The Sam Sanders Show." In 2020, when JLo and Shakira co-headlined, they had "kids in mock-up cages to shine a light on Donald Trump's immigration policy during his first term. Bad Bunny has already said enough to be political."

"The halftime show is secondary at this point," he added.

The NFL partnered with Jay-Z and Roc Nation to produce the Apple Music Halftime Show in 2019, and ever since, The Weeknd, Usher, Rihanna, Kendrick Lamar, and others have been tapped to headline.

"There's been this narrative that makes it seem as if so many of the halftime shows since then have been problems because they're too political," Sanders said. But the ratings haven't wavered; Lamar's 2025 halftime show performance became the most-watched of all time with 133.5 million viewers. (Ratings for Bad Bunny's performance have not yet been officially released.)

And if viewers knew where to look − beyond actor Samuel L. Jackson appearing as Uncle Sam or backup dancers dressed in white, red, and blue lining up to create the illusion of the American flag − Lamar's halftime set spoke to the Black experience, racial injustice and referenced Gil Scott-Heron's famous 1971 "The Revolution Will Not Be Televised" spoken word poem.

It was a nod to how art and music have been used to move culture forward and spark social movements, all while still entertaining.

"Historically, music and art are political," said Darlene Lopez, Founder and Managing Director of Evoke Creative. "But I do feel it's a bit unfair how much expectation is had on Black and brown artists to make a political statement."

Aside from suave showmanship and feel-good Latin rhythms, Bad Bunny gave viewers an assortment of easter eggs alluding to his Latino heritage and Puerto Rico's fraught political history.

Does Bad Bunny owe fans a grand political statement at the Super Bowl?

Bad Bunny's political stance on issues affecting Puerto Rico, specifically, and the Latino community has been firm since the start.

During Trump's first term, two back-to-back hurricanes, including Hurricane Maria, ravaged the island in 2017, and the "Turista" artist criticized the president for his response and lack of aid to Puerto Rico. He's spoken up against transphobia and opposed colonialism and gentrification in Puerto Rico, and in 2019, he stopped his European tour to return home to protest when Puerto Ricans were demanding Governor Ricardo Rosselló's resignation.

"There's an expectation of Bad Bunny also because he's shown time and time again that that's important to him and his brand," said Lopez. "He has managed to make music that you could shake your butt to that was also addressing blackouts in Puerto Rico" with "El Apagón" from 2022's "Un Verano Sin Ti."

Petra Rivera-Rideau, a professor at Wellesley College and academic expert on reggaetón, added that Bad Bunny's commitment is "always to Puerto Rico."

"He speaks up about those things because he's a concerned citizen, not because he feels, as a celebrity, that he has an obligation to do so," she said.

'An artist's job is to perform their craft'

For Vanessa Díaz, a Loyola Marymount University professor and cocreator of the Bad Bunny Syllabus Project, the answer to whether the four-time Spotify Global Top Artist, or any other celebrity with a massive platform, owes the public anything beyond their art is twofold.

"I don't think that any artist owes anyone anything," said Díaz. "What the artist owes them is being their true selves, and if that is a grand political statement, then it is, and if it's not, then it's not. An artist's job is to perform and share their craft in a way that feels true to their artist self, and Bad Bunny always does that."

Authenticity to Bad Bunny has meant speaking up for Puerto Rico and "very specifically focused on performing in Spanish, in Puerto Rican Spanish, and not accommodating an English market in that way," Díaz added. "We cannot underestimate how political it is."

For Sanders, this halftime show displays the NFL's global ambitions and it's almost a disservice to only focus on the political.

"If we let the conversation just be about American politics and Bad Bunny, we're missing the point," Sanders said. "This is a moment in which America needs to realize that we aren't the only people in the room. The NFL wants to talk to the entire world, and Bad Bunny already does."