Right off the bat: I loved the #BadBunny halftime show.
Yeah, I could do without some of the over-the-top sexy shit — but let’s be real, that’s his bread and butter. I’m not excusing it, just saying: if that’s all you saw, you missed the whole damn point.
From the very first image — people cutting sugar cane — this was political as hell. Sugar cane isn’t some random aesthetic. It’s the industrial agriculture imposed by the United States after they took over Puerto Rico in 1898. That was the moment communal farming was destroyed and Puerto Ricans were forced into brutal export agriculture for U.S. profit. That history matters.
The entire performance was an homage to the island I grew up in. The neighborhoods, the sounds, the colors, the references — there’s so much nostalgia packed in there I honestly can’t even list it all. They went down the fucking list. Every Puerto Rican I know was watching this with tears in their eyes.
And maybe most important of all: he did the whole thing in Spanish. At a time when Spanish has basically been criminalized — when people are afraid to speak it in public, afraid of having the “wrong” accent, especially after years of Trump-era racism — that alone is a massive political act.
I need to rewatch it because there’s so much going on, but I wanted to put this out there now. Because I already know a lot of people aren’t going to get it at first glance.
But make no mistake: this wasn’t just a halftime show.
It was a huge cultural and political moment — and for Puerto Ricans especially, it meant a hell of a lot.
¡Pa'lante!
