What to expect from Bad Bunny’s Super Bowl halftime show? Dancing, culture and a side of politics

It’s four days until Puerto Rican superstar Bad Bunny takes to one of the biggest stages in music — the NFL Super Bowl halftime show. 

Bad Bunny, the “King of Latin Trap” and one of the biggest music artists in the world, stayed tight-lipped on Thursday about what fans might be able to expect during the upcoming performance, dodging a question about whether or not he might bring out any musical guests.

But he did promise a good time.

“I know that the world is going to be happy this Sunday. And they’re going to have fun, and they’re going to dance,” said the 31-year-old singer, born Benito Antonio Martínez Ocasio.

He urged viewers at a pre-Super Bowl news conference not to worry about anything except practising their dance moves ahead of the big day.

“I don’t want to give any spoilers. It’s going to be fun,” he said.

But beyond the music and the dancing, culture war commentary has swirled around the decision to give Bad Bunny the halftime show since the announcement was made in September.

That rhetoric has stepped up since last weekend’s Grammy Awards, where the singer used the platform to criticize the Trump administration’s immigration crackdown in the U.S., led in part by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE).

After accepting the Grammy for best música urbana album on Sunday for DeBÍ TiRAR MáS FOToS — which later made history as the first Spanish-language album to win album of the year — Bad Bunny started his speech with the words: “Before I say thanks to God, I’m gonna say ICE out.”

After rousing applause, the singer added: “We’re not savage, we’re not animals, we’re not aliens. We are humans and we are Americans.”

Increased immigration enforcement in the U.S. resulted in the deaths of two U.S. citizens — Renee Good and Alex Pretti — in Minnesota last month.

While other stars including Billie Eilish and Olivia Dean also used their stage time to either criticize the immigration crackdown or defend immigrants, Bad Bunny’s comments were some of the most direct.

When asked about the possibility of politics playing a role at halftime on Sunday, NFL commissioner Roger Goodell said he expected Bad Bunny would use the huge platform to bring the country together.

“Bad Bunny … is one of the great artists in the world and that’s one of the reasons we chose him. But the other reason is he understood the platform he was on, and that this platform is used to unite people,” Goodell said at a Monday news conference.

“I think Bad Bunny understands that and I think he’ll have a great performance.”

Benjamin Tausig, a professor at Stony Brook University who studies protest music, says he expects any political statements at the big game to be more subtle than those at the Grammys. 

He says the open-ended acceptance speech format of the awards show, where celebrities have a few minutes to say whatever they like in front of an audience of their peers, naturally attracts more political statements.

The NFL tightly scripts and manages halftime show performances in order to prevent potentially polarizing commentary, Tausig said.

“At the Super Bowl, [artists] can’t be explicit, but they can be implicit,” he said. “And I bet that Bad Bunny will find some ways to do that.”

Last year’s performance by Kendrick Lamar is a perfect example, he says. The Pulitzer Prize-winning rapper was “subtle and clever” in his commentary about how the U.S. treats its Black citizens, Tausig said, which allowed him to pull it off.

Politics already in play

Whatever happens this weekend, Bad Bunny’s performance has already taken on a political dimension.

Those on the political right panned the choice to have Bad Bunny perform, with some going after his lack of English songs. Others said he was a “massive Trump hater” and “anti-ICE activist,” while the U.S. president himself said the choice was “absolutely ridiculous.”

Bad Bunny previously criticized Trump’s response to Hurricane Maria, which devastated Puerto Rico, and seemingly took shots at the president in the music video for his song NUEVAYoL, in which a Trump-esque voice can be heard on a radio apologizing to immigrants.

The artist also opted for a 30-show residency in Puerto Rico rather than a tour of the U.S. mainland, in part due to fears that “ICE could be outside” his concerts attempting to detain fans. 

Since Bad Bunny accepted the gig at the Super Bowl, which is being held at Levi’s Stadium in Santa Clara, Calif., U.S. secretary of Homeland Security Kristi Noem told right-wing podcaster Benny Johnson that ICE would be at the game taking part in law enforcement.

NFL officials said this week that ICE would not, in fact, be one of the federal agencies responsible for security on game day, but local residents reportedly aren’t convinced and remain concerned.

In protest, the right-wing advocacy group Turning Point USA is hosting its own “All-American Half-time Show” on Sunday. Headlined by Kid Rock and featuring performances from a handful of country artists, the show is being billed as a celebration of “faith, family and freedom.”

“[Bad Bunny] said he’s having a dance party, wearing a dress, and singing in Spanish? Cool. We plan to play great songs for folks who love America,” Kid Rock said.

‘Everything he does’ is political: music critic

Beyond the culture war fray, freelance music critic Reanna Cruz says Bad Bunny taking the Super Bowl stage sends a message because of what the artist means to the Latino community.

The superstar is set to make history if he performs the set entirely in Spanish, as expected. He’s sung solely in Spanish (spare a few English words or phrases here and there) across all six of his studio albums — a rare feat, Cruz says, as many other Spanish-language artists have switched to English in order to appeal to a wider, mainstream audience.

(If you want to brush up on your Spanish before Sunday, Duolingo has decoded some of the star’s hits with “Bad Bunny 101.”)

Bad Bunny also incorporates sounds from lesser known Puerto Rican folk genres and sings about issues plaguing his home island, which has made him a symbol for the Latino community, and made his music inherently political, Cruz argues.

“All of this — who he is as a person and the ethos that he has around celebrity and supporting his community — make everything he does political,” Cruz said. “The fact that he has that platform in the first place is decidedly important and a message in its own right.”