In this op-ed, writer Yamilette Vizcaíno Rivera explores the Boricua history Bad Bunny might bring to his Super Bowl 2026 performance.
The electronic rain sounds of “ALAMBRE PúA” flood El Choliseo with a pining melody, and the stage in front of me comes alive — the mountains of Puerto Rico, green and wild, rise just beyond where you’d expect, complete with a Flamboyant tree in the top right corner. Down below the flora is a pink and yellow casita perfectly positioned to view it all, its roof conspicuously flat and clear, like a dance floor. I notice this and blurt, “Bad Bunny’s gonna stand on that house.” When he does — performing a close to 20 minute set with Rauw Alejandro — I’m suddenly much closer to Benito Antonio Martínez Ocasio than my seat number led me to believe I would be.
Mainland reporting on Bad Bunny’s Residencia en El Choli, “No Me Quiero Ir De Aquí,” has focused on his rise to popularity, the significant economic impact he’s made, and the records he broke with his livestreamed extra performance. Some have acknowledged the inherently political choice to stage a residency in Puerto Rico in the first place. Slightly less covered is the wealth of Boricua history that makes his art as powerful as it is, including over 100 years of fraught Puerto Rico-U.S. relations that led to his arrival. This history is crucial for understanding the significance of where Bad Bunny stands now, and where he is going next.
When the NFL announced him as the headliner for the 2026 Super Bowl LX Halftime Show, the array of angry and confused reactions ranged from overt racism and xenophobic deportation threats to ignorance of Bad Bunny’s impact on both reggaeton and the definition of a pop artist. Whether the audience can understand the Puerto Rican Spanish or what it’s referencing, Benito’s art is inextricable from his (and his people’s) politics; it will be inextricable from his Super Bowl performance too. Just a survey of Boricua history will show: Bad Bunny is perhaps the only pop star fully equipped to take on the juxtaposition of the current American sociopolitical ecosystem and the fact that a show, definitionally, must entertain.
Art and politics are inseparable components of the same constellation: what you care about, and how it’s connected. Where works of art are bright focal points of care, politics is the organizing principle that connects them and gives them meaning. Puerto Ricans have been under U.S. control since the 1898 invasion, and have only had citizenship since the Jones-Shafroth Act in 1917. The themes in Bad Bunny’s performances draw strongly from the power dynamics and tense political reality rooted in this history, bringing the art/politics constellation sharply into focus. Heartbreak refracts as it passes though the loss of the land where that love existed. Joy takes on additional layers, functioning as armor against those who would forbid you from self-expression, reflecting light and hope in every direction.
Because Puerto Rico’s population is about half the size of its diaspora, lives on the archipelago overlap and intertwine endlessly; it takes my tía 3 hours to enumerate all of our family’s connections to the Residencia production. Before Julito Gastón was Benito’s musical director, leading dances in the Loíza-born Afro-Puerto Rican tradition of Bomba on stage, he was a young child going viral for his drumming videos, which my cousins still used as tutorials three years ago. Before iLe, of Calle 13, sang “LO QUE LE PASÓ A HAWAii” for the 18th show, she was present at a birthday party my cousin still returns to PR to attend. Before the woman working security for the door to the casita on stage signed her contract, she went to school with my tía.
Scratch the surface of any of these simple interpersonal connections and underneath will be politics. The Bomba dances Gastón led onstage are a Black Puerto Rican tradition that have been part of Boricua protest since slavery. The outfit iLe wore to sing the haunted lullaby was explicitly inspired by the one Lolita Lebrón wore in her 1954 mugshot, taken after she led an armed attack on the U.S. Capitol for Puerto Rican independence. The flag Bad Bunny flies onstage is specifically the azul celeste (lighter blue shade) one that predates the U.S. invasion. To Boricuas who grew up in the caserío housing projects in the 90s, sitting in the plastic chairs featured on the DtMF album cover, these symbols and references are all political.
