Bad Bunny gives Super Bowl viewers two options: exit or click | Bad bunny

TThe morning after the January 3 US military operation in Venezuela, in which Nicolás Maduro was captured, the Federal Aviation Administration temporarily closed airspace in parts of the Eastern Caribbean, extending my stay in St. Kitts by an unexpected additional week. At the mercy of regulations that determine which lanes will open when, and who will be directed where, a busy customer service agent suggested that I charter a boat to nearby St. Maarten, fly to Amsterdam, and then string together a series of flights to avoid the affected airspace. I understood the Caribbean, then, not as a series of nearby islands, but as a set of roads connected by forces elsewhere.

Not only does the authority regulate airspace, it also governs the process of cultural transmission – who is broadcast, who is listened to, and under what conditions. Which is why complaining about Puerto Rican artist Bad Bunny headlining the Super Bowl halftime show, and characterizing his almost exclusive use of Spanish in his music as intrusive, seems so disingenuous. Drama is not about understanding words. Rather, it is a claim that Bad Bunny and his music are fundamentally un-American, stemming from the fear of feeling left out, or more colloquially, fear of missing out (FOMO).

FOMO feelings usually go in one of two directions: they either turn into resentment or they ferment out of productive curiosity. While some promote counter events specifically for halftime viewing, like Turning Point USA’s All-American Halftime Show, my neighbor Susie would spend a few minutes every night at the dinner table with her kids, reviewing the proper slow pronunciation of Much more. Some people withdraw, others intervene. Both reactions are shaped by the same ways of power that decide what it is like to be American, and what becomes foreign.

The United States has long relied on the Caribbean while insisting that the region culturally remains elsewhere. Puerto Rico’s status as an unincorporated territory is designed to keep it close enough to claim (i.e. own), while still withholding full belonging from its residents. There is a nuance to this arrangement, of course. Empire depends on these hidden infrastructures, ones that create invisible boundaries between places and people.

For their part, Caribbean artists work to make these invisible boundaries understandable – and often dance and song worthy as well. Much of what I know about what imperialism looks like comes from Caribbean voices: Peter Tosh, The Great Sparrow, Sandra Singing, and Ruben Blades, to name a few. Before I could understand exactly what they meant when they sang about freedom, liberation, and colonialism, the sticky melodies and swinging rhythms kept me close long enough to learn more and learn better.

That’s why I’m not impressed by the claim that music sung in Spanish will alienate viewers. For example, Pani’s 2022 song “El Apagon” refers to Puerto Rico’s frequent blackouts over a long period of infrastructure failure — an electrical grid left to rot and broader colonial abandonment. Over a heavy percussion beat, stripped of its digital sheen, the song enacts the technical conditions mentioned in its title, The Blackout. It’s still a party song. It keeps you moving, but the political milieu is inevitable. Caribbean music like Bad Bunny—with its reggaeton and backbone, along with salsa, bomba, and their diasporic cousins—played on a stage like a Super Bowl halftime show, represents a call for a common stance, and people want to join in.

My point is not that music is universal or that Bad Bunny’s music is a universal, transcendent sound. not so. He is specifically rooted in and directed through his island home. His music doesn’t transcend language so much as it holds our attention long enough to do the actual work of getting past the superficial lyrics. It invites us to do the work of finding out, and this seems particularly poignant (crucial, even) in a political landscape where nationalism is dressed up as logic and fear is marketed as patriotism.

At a time when interest is waning, what Bad Bunny’s conservative critics forget — intentionally or not — is that contemporary audiences consume music with unlimited study evidence. Throughout his career, Bad Bunny’s music videos have done the brunt for those of us who don’t immediately understand his Puerto Rican Spanish. In his latest project, Debí Tirar Más Fotos (dtmf)The music videos (really short films) tell poignant stories of change, loss, family, immigration, and the desire to have a good time. What people may lack in understanding a foreign language is made up for by countless translations, tutorials, and real people who are happy to point out the pitfalls and explain the meanings.

One of the most captivating moments came during this year’s Grammy Awards when South African-born Trevor Noah sang the lyrics to his single DtMF by El Conejo Malo himself. Noah embodied the contemporary listening ethic: the ordinary willingness to cross a small distance in exchange for mutual recognition. Many people wait for a similar moment while watching the halftime show.

When fear is promoted as nationalism, the productive curiosity that FOMO can inspire becomes a counterforce – an imperfect force, to be sure, but a motivating one nonetheless. In a moment of so many fears – fear of the future, or the feeling of the absence of one – many of us are choosing to work together rather than fear each other.

Jessica Swanston Baker is Associate Professor of Music at the University of Chicago and specializes in contemporary Caribbean popular music.