“How delicious it is to be Latino!” With that war cry, Bad Bunny transformed the stage of the Super Bowl of American football into a colorful ode to Latin America, with a staging full of references to his native Puerto Rico in which he reaffirmed on the most American stage his absolute dominance of the Hispanic heritage in the United States.
The ‘bad rabbit’ opened the stage of the NFL sporting event, the most watched in the US, with the hit ‘Titi asked me’, dressed in a white suit that simulated an American football kit and carrying a football under his arm.
Immediately afterwards ‘Yo Perreo Sola’ began to play, a song that he dedicated to women who want to go out on the dance floor calmly, without anyone bothering them. The song became an anti-bullying anthem for his 2020 album ‘Yo Hago Lo Que Me Da La Gana’, released during the pandemic.
A ‘Casita’ full of Latin friends
A Bad Bunny performance would not be a performance without the famous casita, a replica of a typical cement house in Puerto Rico, integrated into the staging of his concerts and where one of the biggest surprises of the show awaited.
And the artist promised a great party and he did it. He also said there would be many guests and there were. They were innumerable: from Cardi B, through the Colombian Karol G, the Chilean Pedro Pascal, Jessica Alba, Young Miko, David Grutman, to Lady Gaga and Ricky Martin, who were her only vocal accompaniment in the minutes of the show.
“Good afternoon California, my name Benito Antonio Martínez Ocasio,” Bad Bunny introduced himself like this. “If I am here today it is because I never stopped believing in myself and you should also believe in yourself, you are worth more than you think,” he continued saying as the chords of ‘Monaco’ began to play.
In between, a wedding between what is presumed to be an immigrant and an American, a symbol of the diversity of the United States and one of the moments of silent protest that did not go unnoticed. Bad Bunny falls inside the house and leaves while the echoes of ‘Gasolina’ by Daddy Yankee resonate.
The expectation of seeing the Puerto Rican reggaeton singer turned into amazement when, instead, the American star Lady Gaga burst in by surprise. Dressed in an impeccable blue suit and accompanied by a tropical orchestra, the singer took control of the show to sing ‘Die With a Smile’, along with a salsa band.
The artist said goodbye to the spotlight just before the start of ‘Baile Inolvidable’, the highlight of the show.
The Levi’s stadium in Santa Clara erupted in joy when the first chords of ‘NUEVAYoL’ were played, a scene in which Bad Bunny reappeared to symbolically present a Grammy award to a child who was tuning in on television with his father.
The white chairs, the Puerto Rican bomb and the concho toad
From the banana plantation stage, sitting in one of the chairs similar to the one on the cover of the album ‘I should have thrown more photos’, the singer Ricky Martin was present to sing the vindicative ‘What happened to Hawaii’.
Despite being politically correct, the performance was loaded with messages, such as the residents of the poorest areas of Puerto Rico dancing their reggaeton, or the electric poles that surrounded the ‘bad rabbit’ while he held a flag of his country and sang ‘el Apagón’.
The concho toad could not be missing, an amphibian endemic to Puerto Rico in critical danger of extinction and which Bad Bunny has used as a native symbol of his recent world tour.
The show was approaching its end, but not before pronouncing the only words in English that were heard during his performance: “God bless America,” says Bad Bunny, who proceeds to name countries on the American continent and on stage, all the flags of the countries that make up Latin America appear.
(With a report from Mikaela Viqueira, from EFE)
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