Bad Bunny, the award-winning Puerto Rican superstar, whose real name (in true Latino naming conventions) is Benito Antonio Martinez Ocasio, will perform the Super Bowlโs half-time show.
As Spotifyโs most-played artist of 2025, ousting Taylor Swift, Bad Bunny also became the first Spanish speaker to win Album of the Year at the Grammys last week for DeBร TiRAR MรกS FOToS (I shouldโve taken more pictures, in English.)
From San Juan to the Super Bowl and Sydney: Bad Bunny fever is sweeping Australia.Credit: Aresna Villanueva
Growing up on the Caribbean Island โ often branded as the USโs informal 51st state โ Bad Bunny uses his reggaeton beats to talk about the plight of his people who have been entrenched in debt exacerbated by natural disasters and Hurricane Irma in 2017. Puerto Ricans are US citizens but cannot vote in US federal elections.
Bad Bunny has long been a critic of the USโs Immigration and Customs Enforcement โ even declining to tour the US so his fans arenโt detained at concerts โ and reiterated his stance while on stage at the Grammys.
โWeโre not savage. Weโre not animals. Weโre not aliens. Weโre Americans, and we are humans,โ he said before a cheering crowd. โBefore I say thanks to God, Iโm gonna say ICE out.โ
Breaking onto the reggaeton-trap scene in 2016, it was the release of Un Verano Sin Ti (A summer without you) in 2022 that cemented El Conejo Maloโs sound: old-school reggaeton fused with trap bars, salsa, techno, afro-beats, some anti-US sentiment and emo lyrics about failed situationships or loneliness.
It was the precursor for what was to come in 2025 with the release of his latest album โ a nostalgic ode to Puerto Rico that makes you want to cry, laugh and twerk.
