Will this be the most political Super Bowl ever? After Kendrick Lamar, Trump now has to face Bad Bunny

With a Grammy in his pocket for Album of the Year, Bad Bunny is ready to set the stage of Levi's Stadium in Santa Clara on fire. Last year, the Super Bowl halftime performance was led by Kendrick Lamar, an artist who like the Puerto Rican rapper had raised eyebrows on the American right for his political lyrics in a historically tense period. But while last year the author of Humble did not use the opportunity to denounce the American government and its conservative projects (among them, the removal of the End Racism slogan from the end zone of the field) preferring instead to throw jabs at his artistic enemy Drake, this time the stakes are higher. Perhaps last year we were wrong: the most political Super Bowl ever could be this one.

The sociopolitical climate is tense. ICE, the federal agency of the United States Department of Homeland Security, under the second Trump administration has become more aggressive. In one year, $100 million have been allocated for the recruitment of new employees: as if the country were at war, the American government is launching an offensive to carry out the «largest deportation program in the history of the United States» that Trump promised so much during his last election campaign. The White House is using alternative advertising spaces to find new recruits, from Snapchat to Spotify, from YouTube to HBO Max.

No one is safe from the propaganda of the anti-immigration agency, not even Europe: in recent weeks rumors have begun circulating that ICE would be present at the Milan Cortina 2026 Olympics to «protect American athletes,» news to which Milan reacted with a march of thousands of people just a few days ago. In short, Bad Bunny’s Super Bowl performance this Sunday is no longer a national issue, but a global one.

Bad Bunny’s Super Bowl performance

At the Grammys we only got a taste of what the Puerto Rican rapper might bring to the Super Bowl stage. On a night filled with celebrities who chose to wear the ICE OUT pin (including Billie Eilish, Justin and Hailey Bieber, Kehlani, Joni Mitchell, Olivia Rodrigo), Bad Bunny accepted the Album of the Year award, one of the Academy’s most important, repeating the same statement and dedicating the statuette to all American immigrants who are suffering violence and oppression at the hands of the military organization and those who support it. The same was done by Olivia Dean, a British artist who received the Best New Artist award, speaking about having been born into a family of immigrants.

The support of the entire music industry, standing to applaud both Bad Bunny’s talent and his statements, as well as the message at the heart of the album that brought him to the Grammy stage, leads us to believe that this Sunday Bad Bunny will not hold back. After all, this is the most-watched show in all of America, a musical performance as important as the football game that precedes it and the commercials that punctuate it.

The message of DeBÍ TiRAR MáS FOToS

Even someone who doesn’t speak Spanish can understand that DeBÍ TiRAR MáS FOToS is an ode to Puerto Rico, a critique of colonialism, and a serenade to South American independence. First of all because the album is sung in the rapper’s mother tongue, not in English, and secondly because the sound blends reggaeton, trap, salsa, bomba, plena, and latin pop with the support of local bands and artists. From New York (Nuevayol on the album) to Puerto Rico, the project is an emotional journey that brings the rapper back home. Bad Bunny uses the intense rhythm of salsa and the frenzy of reggaeton to talk about roots and tradition in an innovative way, even involving some emerging artists from Puerto Rico to offer them a platform to the world. TikToks set to DtMF aside, audiences around the world immediately understood the album’s message and sang it at the top of their lungs for an entire year. This Sunday, we’ll see whether the spectators at Levi’s Stadium respond with the same passion.