How a Colombian newspaper reported Bad Bunny’s historic Super Bowl performance
Last Sunday, Bad Bunny performed at the Super Bowl. In a country pushed to the limit with the persecution of migrants and anyone who is against the violent raids by ICE, a singer with an album mostly in Spanish, born in Puerto Rico – an “unincorporated territory” – of the United States, has headlined its biggest sports and music event.
In this context, it’s not surprising that the simple fact that Bad Bunny performed at the Super Bowl is itself historic.
But the analysis by Claudia Arango Holguin from El Colombiano goes further than most in explaining the messaging underneath such a spectacle and how it resonated with observers in Latin America: “It was a symbolic snapshot of what it means to be Latino”, she explains. And, as the article’s title suggests: “a manifesto”.
The Latino working class as a pillar of the US
In a quasi-cinematic sequence, Bad Bunny’s set begins in sugarcane fields, taking us deep into Puerto Rican history, from the time when the US took control of Puerto Rico in 1898, and US sugar corporations came to dominate its economy.
As Bad Bunny walks around, we catch glimpses of everyday life on the island: small businesses such as a nail salon, a taco stand, a barbershop, a gold shop, and a shaved ice cart, evoking Old San Juan, the island’s capital. Bad Bunny walks between two boxers, one of them Puerto Rico’s Xander Zayas. The article notes that the scenes convey a message about the Latino working class and how it has been forged in the history of the United States, alongside moments of Caribbean nostalgia, such as grandparents playing dominoes.
That longing feeling is reinforced when a little kid watches on TV Bad Bunny getting a Grammy, and the singer gives the award to him, “reminding us that we were all that kid once, dreaming big”, according to the production team behind the show.
Puerto Rico in all its fury
In the section “La Casita”, also an element of his current tour, we see a typical Puerto Rican house with a neighbourhood party in the garage. These gatherings are considered the birthplace of reggaeton in the 1980s and 1990s. For a brief moment, we hear a remix of classic reggaeton hits: a tribute to those “urban” artists who paved the way for the genre’s recognition.
A toad appears, the Sapo Concho, a species that has appeared in Bad Bunny’s album promo materials and has been listed as a Threatened Species since 2020. It’s native to the island and also serves as a cautionary tale about the richness of its biodiversity.
Later, on stage, Bad Bunny carries a Puerto Rico flag that had long been banned and suppressed. “That blue is the true shade of our flag,” a Puerto Rican friend tells the journalist from El Colombiano while they watch the show together. That exact flag design was banned by the United States from 1898 to 1957 for being considered a symbol of sedition, independence, and colonial resistance. Although permitted since 1957, its colour was darkened several shades to resemble the blue of the Stars and Stripes. “Another powerful message conveyed without words”, the author thinks.
When the surprise guest arrived, Lady Gaga performed her hit “Die with a Smile” to a salsa rendition with a band, wearing a dress in the same light blue shade as the flag, with a maga flower over her shoulder, the national symbol of the island.
In one of his more acclaimed songs, NUEVAYoL, singer Benito not only celebrates his Caribbean accent, mispronouncing the name New York, but mentions an icon that appears on stage: Toñita, the octogenarian owner of the Caribbean Social Club in Brooklyn, a venue that has created an essential space for the Nuyorican community.
Then, amidst banana groves, we see Ricky Martin rising from a plastic chair and singing a warning: “I don’t want them to do to you, what they did to Hawaii” (another US territory acquired at the turn of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, though one which subsequently became a state).
Two very political moments in Bad Bunny’s show
Bad Bunny sings El Apagón (The Blackout), climbing on a set of telegraph poles, a clear reference to the severe crisis in Puerto Rico’s electrical system, marked by frequent blackouts, outdated infrastructure, and a daily impact on residents’ quality of life. (And something which, the journalist suggests, the US government has neglected to address since Hurricane Maria all the way back in 2017).
In the end, Bad Bunny re-claims the famous God Bless America… but mentions each of the countries of America, the continent. In a divided society, the messages “Together we are America” and, behind him, on a giant screen, “The only thing more powerful than hate is love,” make a gesture of resistance or an alternative path from those who lead with hate.
As El Colombiano concludes: “In his defence of what it means to be Puerto Rican, and without mentioning President Donald Trump or ICE, he says more than an insult could have, and he did it with music, with symbols, with representation, with staging; and in Spanish”.
The original article, ‘Bad Bunny convirtió el Super Bowl en un manifiesto latino: el significado de cada símbolo de su show histórico’, by Claudia Arango Holguín, was published in Spanish in El Colombiano on 9 January 2026.
It is available here.
El Colombiano is a newspaper that has been published in Antioquia, Colombia, for over 100 years. They aim to be “the connection to building society”.
