Puerto Rican rapper Bad Bunny smashed the record for the most watched Super Bowl Halftime Show in Santa Clara, California with a historic 135.4 million views. And became the first musician to perform entirely in Spanish at a Super Bowl.
Benito Martínez Ocasio has been Spotify’s top annual streaming artist four times and has helped to turn Spanish-language rap into a global success story. Born 10 March 1994, in Bayamon, the son of a truck driver and a school-teacher, he sang in the church choir as a child and got his first record deal aged 14.
Unlike last year, Donald Trump did not attend and poured vitriol on BB’s performance -“Absolutely terrible, one of the worst, EVER!” he declared on Truth Social presumably a reaction to Bad Bunny using his recent Grammys speech to criticise the government-sanctioned ICE raids in Minnesota.
BB is a Sun Pisces with a Pisces/Aquarius Moon. He has an intense North Node conjunct Pluto in late Scorpio which squares Mercury giving him strong opinions. His Pluto North Node also square a hard-edged Mars Saturn (Moon) in Pisces which will give him a deep reservoir of anger about unfair treatment. His Pluto opposes Trump’s Midheaven and squares DT’s Mars for a mighty, never-give-in clash. BB’s inventive and highly-strung, generational Uranus Neptune also oppose DT’s Saturn Venus in Cancer for a clash of values. And BB’s short-fused Mars Saturn falls in DT’s 7th house.
Worst of all possible combinations.
Their relationship chart has a composite Mars Venus in final degree Taurus opposition Neptune in final degree Scorpio – Mars Neptune is an ego-clash, one wins the other loses. The final degree of signs is pervasive in-the-news charts at the moment. Maybe a hint that this run-in could have potentially wider ramifications as a turning point in the culture of the times.
Bad Bunny looks very unsettled ahead with tr Uranus square his Pluto in March and then moving in to square his Mars Saturn in June/July and on. Risky?
I lived in South America, speak Spanish and as an art teacher I taught mostly Puerto Rican, Dominican (in NYC) and Mexican (in Chicago) kiddos in my 20 year career. This halftime show was a master class in performance art. I just want to add one note that I think hasn’t been said enough- I stopped watching the NFL when they black listed Colin Kapernick but football was part of my family’s culture; the fact that the NFL platformed the intellectually minded and conceptual music of Kenderick Lamar spotlighting black culture and followed up with Bad Bunny with all the pressure they were under and didn’t pull out is astounding to me. There was one way to nail this moment and they found it- show was a celebration of love and its really hard to criticize that message- the governments attempts will fall flat to literally anyone paying attn.
I saw the halftime show. It was an incredibly rich and joyous celebration of Hispanic culture, music and family life, as well as a love letter to Puerto Rico, with many pointed historical references to Puerto Rico’s experiences and suffering under U.S. colonialism.
Of many outstanding moments packed into the 13-minute show, the one that stood out for me was when BB named all the Spanish-speaking countries and territories in the Western Hemisphere (as well as countries with a significant Hispanic representation, including Canada and the U.S.), as if to reclaim the designation “American” for the entire hemisphere. It was an acknowledgement of the huge importance of Hispanic culture in all the Americas.
And yet, BB’s message was one of inclusivity and mutual kindness; his parting statement was “The only thing stronger than hate is love,” and his show featured several Anglo performers, such as Lady Gaga. Significantly, the only English words he spoke during the performance were “God bless America.”
Forbes magazine and other sites have a rundown of the show’s symbolism, if you’re interested.
Trump, Miller and maga nearly lost their minds back when it was announced that BB would be the halftime performer; the choice was seen (rightly) as a rebuke of their white supremacist ideology and their anti-immigrant campaign. It was also a rebuke to the maga fantasy that only English-speaking people of Northern European descent are truly “American.” (Many don’t even realize, or perhaps pretend to forget, that Puerto Ricans are Americans.)
Demographically, Hispanic people are the largest minority group in the U.S., and their influence continues to grow (despite Miller et al.’s best efforts); while the old white oligarchy is on the wane. After Trump and his crew are long gone, I think Hispanic people will be saying, “seguimos aquí” (we are still here). A turning point in the culture of the times, for sure.
Speaking as an old Anglo person — who admittedly embraces Latino culture, speaks Spanish and lives near the Mexican border — I loved the show and all its symbolism. I don’t watch football and watched the show online the next day.
I was particularly impressed with Bad Bunny and his humanity. IMHO, we need more people of the open, loving character of Bad Bunny and fewer vicious, hate-filled scumbags like Donald Trump, Stephen Miller and their ilk like Netanyahu and Putin.
I sure hope this is a turning point in the culture and political wars.