The Bad Bunny Revolution

How the halftime show gave voice to unheard emotions

When Bad Bunny finished one of the coldest Super Bowl performances in history, dancing in a sea of flags and lovers, singing his song “DtMF,” I thought of the current moment in history — our anger and sadness at our country — and every act to silence or erase us: the powerlessness we as Black and Brown Americans who are often left out feel. The terror. Anxiety. Resentment. A feeling we have carried in our souls: this country is bullying us and it refuses to stop.

But his performance offered a refuge. As he stood in the midst of a sugar cane plantation, the sickles grinding away at the root, I thought of the ways the fields are so deeply ancestral for us. They represent the worst kind of origins, the sweetened rot that built this country. They represent the trauma and rupture of slavery that we feel in our bones and the ways we turned a mechanism of oppression into a site of freedom — singing, dancing, eventually dismantling the master’s house.

He stood among older domino players, and a New York-style bodega where Cardi B and Pedro Pascal made a cameo. He watched in satisfaction as a wedding took place. He ascended, triumphantly, toward the broken utility poles, performing “El Apagon” — a song referencing the 1898 American takeover of Puerto Rico — while the lights blinked as if in a storm, unashamedly and lovingly inviting the audience into the full range of the experience of his people. He took us on a journey home and he meant business.

As he performed the final song, behind him the billboard read: “THE ONLY THING MORE POWERFUL THAN HATE IS LOVE.” The football he had been holding the entire time, one of the greatest symbols of American love and greed, was held by one of our most trusted and compassionate hands. In a golden bold print, his sermon appeared: Together, We Are America. At one moment, he held the ball and looked at it as if the words meant everything; and they do.

In a social media post, someone wrote, “Christian Americans are standing together tonight and tuning out of the NFL halftime show.” As I watched, I wondered to myself: If this isn’t Christian, then I don’t know what is. Green Day sang “American Idiot.” Coco Jones sang “Lift Every Voice and Sing.” Brandi Carlile, a queer artist, sang “America, The Beautiful.” Then in dramatic fashion, adorned in a fully custom fit designed by ZARA, Bad Bunny said, “God bless America.” A few minutes later, the president called it “one of the worst” half-time shows “ever.” We know that is a lie.

What gets me is that Bad Bunny said “God bless America” in English and then named nations from literally every region of the Americas — North, South, and Central. But he chose to name the US and Canada last, effectively upending who gets to determine what America is and means. Right now, that’s immensely healing.

The writer Maya Angelou said, “You will forget what people said; you will forget what people did, but you will never forget how they made you feel.” We carry with us the feeling: we have marched and prayed and resisted and fought and built, and it feels as if what we as people of good faith and will have done just isn’t enough. We are sad and angry, but most of all, we often feel defeated and numb. Donald Trump and MAGA have been arrogant, abusive, mediocre, and bigoted. ICE has been violent and evil. They are displaying the white supremacist roots of the country: rolling back rights; separating families from children; deporting people; weaponizing religion; displaying no goodness or care.

We know the feeling: Americans have felt that no one is fighting for us. We have felt that those who are meant to protect us and defend us care little to stop them. We have seen people loud about Jesus but silent about oppression. We have felt their arrogance and ignorance and their bigotry. And we have been angry and have marched and wondered: “Who is fighting for us?” Then enters Bad Bunny. Struttin’, Puerto Rican and US flags together, the deeply spiritual drums moving all of us, and we feel it. We feel the resistance and the joy.

Just as this daring and beautiful show was taking place, Kid Rock performed to a MAGA crowd. And trust me when I say this: they are afraid.