Grammy-winning Puerto Rican star is in the center of US culture wars before leading this weekend’s half-time show

A few days after Christmas 2022, Bad Bunny, the Puerto Rican reggaetonero, appeared without warning on one of the most unlikely of stages: the roof of a Gulf Oil gas station in San Juan. To a massive crowd singing every word, he performed a surprise concert, along with friend and collaborator Arcángel, that was part hype-y music video shoot, part exultant post-tour homecoming, and part pointed critique. He ended the set with El Apagón (“The Power Outage”), a clubby protest anthem about local displacement and the rolling blackouts that have plagued Puerto Rico, a US “commonwealth” (read: colony), since Hurricane Maria in 2017.

Bad Bunny sang it from a roof on Santurce’s Calle Loíza, a thoroughfare in a former working-class Black neighborhood now dotted with Airbnbs. But you do not need the full context to get the show’s contagious energy. Though I have never walked Calle Loíza, nor do I speak Spanish, the gas station show is still my favorite concert to rewatch via online fan clips: electric, organic, genuinely popular. In terms of reach, critical acclaim and longevity, Bad Bunny rivals – and sometimes outsells – the likes of Taylor Swift, Kendrick Lamar, Beyoncé and Drake, though it is hard to imagine those peers appearing so unguarded, so public, as he does on that roof.

Welche Promis kommen, wer schaltet Werbung, was sagen die Kommentatoren: Beim größten Sportereignis der USA kann man auf fast alles setzen. „Prediction Markets“ sind nicht nur im Sport riesig, sondern auch in der Politik – und sie sind anfällig für Betrug.

The Puerto Rican singer’s highly anticipated Super Bowl half-time show has inspired non-Spanish speakers to study Puerto Rican dialect and slang

Bad Bunny is expected to perform the Super Bowl half-time show on Sunday entirely in Spanish – which has inspired fans to quickly learn the language.

In October, the Puerto Rican singer – born Benito Antonio Martínez Ocasio – kicked off the 51st season of Saturday Night Live expressing pride over the achievement in Spanish, after which he said in English, “If you didn’t understand what I just said, you have four months to learn!”