Updated February 8, 2026 at 9:05 AM PST
One week after winning the Grammy for album of the year, Bad Bunny is about to put on the performance of his already astonishing career. The halftime show at the Super Bowl is as big an audience as a musician can hope to play in front of, and the selection of the outspoken Puerto Rican superstar has brought controversy as well as anticipation. But if you're aiming for world domination, there's just one musician to call.
Here are the answers to some questions you might have about the man, his music and the chaos he's been at the center of leading up to Sunday night's show at Levi's Stadium in Santa Clara, Calif., from the perspective of a writer who has spent a decade following his career.
Why did the NFL pick him to play the halftime of the Super Bowl?
Business. The NFL has expressed interest in recent years in expanding further into international markets and few artists have as big of an international footprint right now as Benito Antonio Martinez Ocasio. Plus, as Perry Johnson, a music scholar who teaches at USC's Annenberg school of communication, told me, there's notably higher ratings in years of greater halftime show controversy.
What was the Trump Administration's response to his selection?
After Bad Bunny was announced as the Super Bowl halftime performer, the pick provoked some conservatives. He sings in Spanish and has been a critic of President Trump, going back to his response to Hurricane Maria in 2017.
Turning Point USA, the organization founded by Charlie Kirk, organized an alternative, "All-American" halftime show that's been promoted by Vice President Vance. Homeland Security secretary Kristi Noem said that ICE would be "all over that place," though the NFL's chief security officer said last week that Immigrations and Customs officers would not be present at the stadium. The fact that this performance is happening while Trump's administration is targeting Americans and immigrants who speak Spanish has added to the feelings of tension.
How big a star is he, globally?
"Every generation has a unicorn," AJ Ramos, the head of artist partnerships for Latin music and culture at Youtube, told me. "There was Elvis Presley, Michael Jackson, Celia Cruz, the Beatles, and then there's Bad Bunny."
He was the most popular artist globally on Spotify in 2025 (his fourth time hitting the milestone since 2020). Last weekend he won album of the year at the Grammys, the first time that award has ever been given to an album sung primarily in Spanish. He mounted a 31-concert residency in Puerto Rico and has had multiple sold out world tours. Last week he was the No. 1 artist on Apple Music in China — the first time a Spanish language artist has held that spot.
What does he mean to Puerto Ricans?
Last summer I met a man on the island who told me that every Sunday his entire family would go down to the beach and set up with huge pots of beans and rice and meats and swim and talk and dance until dark. He said he never noticed how little he grew up with because, cast against the natural, free beauty of the island and surrounded by unconditional love, his life felt rich.
Life in Puerto Rico is not easy. But I've noticed people seem to organize themselves by the order of the island. No matter how scorching the sun gets, the ocean is always there. Cool, inviting, eternal. Another apagón (blackout), otro huracán? Love is always there. Abundant, unconditional, easily shared amongst neighbors and desconocidos alike. Value for family, love, mutual support: From what I've been able to observe, these are the building blocks of what it means to be Puerto Rican.
These building blocks are electric, beautiful and all over Benito's music. He told me when I interviewed him last year that there is no greater pride in any accomplishment than being able to say you're from Puerto Rico. The love feels notably mutual. He loves and represents them accurately, honestly and they give it right back. He's the primo you're always proud of, I've been repeatedly told. When he wins, so does Puerto Rico.
Tell us about his residency last summer. How many of the 31 shows did you see?
I was lucky enough to make it to five. "Concert" feels like a wholly inadequate descriptor for the shows. It was the best party you've ever been to mixed with one of the deepest expressions of love for culture and pride for home I've been a part of. It was a family gathering meets a night at the club. And tying it together in a neat bow was Benito, rapero, salsero, man who stands at the front of the stage every night and cries — pleading for us all to love more and never forget the power of who we are and where we're from.
Has he said why he isn't playing any other concerts in the U.S.?
Suzy Exposito asked him point blank in an interview late last year if he was skipping touring the U.S. because of the mass deportations of Latinos. He answered simply, yes.
"There was the issue of — like f****** ICE could be outside [my concert]," he told her.
He stated that there were a lot of reasons why he was skipping the U.S., none out of hate. Despite the importance of the U.S. market in his success and profitability, he has repeatedly stated that he is concerned with speaking to his people: Puerto Ricans and, in recent years, Latin Americans at large. That means spending time on the land of the communities he's speaking to and notably not in the United States which, while home to many Latinos, is adversarial as an imperialistic power to some of his messaging.
Do you think he's going to bring out any guests at the Super Bowl? Other Puerto Rican legends?
Almost every time he's been on a massive stage he's taken time to pay tribute to Puerto Rican history, music and icons of the past. I could imagine him looking to living island legends — Tego Calderón, Marc Anthony, maybe El Gran Combo — for support.
At his residency and on his current global tour he's made space for loads of his contemporaries, from Rauw Alejandro to J Balvin and many others with whom he's collaborated.
The third possibility is that he aligns with the most recognizable artists in the American pop mainstream. He has had hits with Cardi B, Drake, even Beyoncé. This one is starting to feel the most plausible to me. He's never forgetting Puerto Rico, of course, but it seems he's wanting to have something for everyone.
Whatever else happens, his core band — Los Sobrinos, Los Pleneros de la Cresta — is almost guaranteed to be on stage.
If you were going to pick three songs I should listen to if I want to get to know his music, which ones would be at the top of your playlist?
1. "Neverita"
A personal favorite of mine. It's summer kisses and puppy love and ice cream that you'd better lick up quick before it melts.
"Yo estoy puesto pa ti y tu te me quitas." "I'm ready for you and you push me away," he sings against the kind of infectious beat that activates hips.
"El DM explotao', to's le escriben 'hola'
Una fila cabrona y yo quiero la cola"
(The DMs exploding, everyone writing you 'hey'
There's a crazy line and I want the tail)
Quippy and a little stupid. He knows his odds aren't great, but he's gonna try anyway. Suffering, especially from love unrequited, is one of Benito's favorite pastimes.
There's an incontrovertible high that comes from reveling in the things that are supposed to hurt us and he'll dance through desire til forever. If heartbreak needs a marketing team, look no further than Benito Antonio Martinez Ocasio. He sells the drug en masse.
Pero ni modo. "Amores vienen y van como las olas." ("Loves come and go like the waves.") His sun-kissed calling card is a sprinkling of denial that he ever cared.
2. "El Apagon"
Despite the fact that the song is named after and talking about another blackout — a nod to deep infrastructure failures on the island, the energy of the track from beginning to end and the nods to all of the struggles Puerto Ricans face, make it pretty clear that he thinks his island is extraordinary. His absolute super power is challenging us to believe that what some might perceive as weakness is actually what makes us invincible.
It's worth noting that it's one of his most thoughtfully political songs and perhaps sets his personal record of most cuss words packed into one track. Very Benito.
3. "DtMF"
For an artist whose art form is manipulating nostalgia, this could be his magnum opus.
"Ojala que los mios nunca se muden." Generations of pain, loss, and uncertainty wrapped up in the simple hope that "mine will never move." Because as good as Benito is at nostalgia, he's better at hope — that love will overcome hate, that Puerto Rico will be able to build itself up, that he'll get one more night at home to see the sunset.
If I'd just taken a few more photos. If I'd just gotten a few more hugs and a few more kisses while I still had you. Distilled in these lines are Bad Bunny's best qualities as a writer, an artist, a human who deeply, easily connects with the emotions of the world. In its ability to be political, personal and everything in between, he proves himself to be more vessel than man. Someone who can assume the emotions of a nation, of an entire region of the world — and simply, sweetly repeat them back. Less rallying cry and more lullaby he holds the hope of many in a few plena-backed bars.
"If [abuelo] asks if I still miss you, I'll say no," he sings, though every word suggests otherwise. While he might take on the world's emotions, he still can't confront his own. Not all that different from the rest of us after all.
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