Bad Bunny, Kendrick Lamar, and the making of a multicultural America
By Khari Thompson
But in case you needed something in English, “Bad Bunny” gave everyone, from fans to those furious at his presence, something to take home.
On the football he cradled as he flowed around his Super Bowl set, flanked by the flag of every country in the Americas, were the words, “Together, We Are America.”
Flashing on the jumbotron behind him at the end of his 13-minute set, which overflowed with rhythm and joy, was the phrase, “The only thing more powerful than hate is love.”
Those who expected, or perhaps wanted, to see incendiary, pointed jabs toward the administration or law enforcement got something else instead: a jovial cultural moment that celebrated love and community over chaos and disruption.
It included its share of spectacle, like a happy couple getting married on live television and cameos by everyone from Lady Gaga, who sang and danced salsa, to Pedro Pascal, Jessica Alba, Karol G, and Cardi B enjoying themselves behind a parade of dancers.
The fields of sugar cane, signifying the legacy of colonial exploitation and enslavement of Native Taínos and Africans by the Spanish.
Ocasio hanging from broken power lines, signifying Puerto Rico’s outdated energy grids and the mainland’s failure to assist in modernizing them.
Walking past a table of older men playing dominoes—a scene I observed often at parties with my late grandfather, a proud Puerto Rican man named Epifanio Pérez. You’ve probably witnessed this scene, too: at Embrace Massó ¡Con Salsa! International Music Festival; on random summer weekends in Boston’s parks; and on public benches with chessboards and card decks.
Bad Bunny’s set reminds us once again that revolution is not just about grandeur and million-man marches. It’s also about the mundane, the everyday things that keep us going. Preaching love in an increasingly divided country, where the highest office in the land traffics in hate. Protecting your joy and peace against systems designed to rip them from you. Demanding space and acknowledgment for our humanity while persisting against constant assaults on freedom.
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Bad Bunny's Super Bowl halftime performance drew more than 130 million viewers.
(Photo: Apple Newsroom) |
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In consecutive years, two of the biggest artists in the world—one a Black man from Compton, California, and one from the island of Puerto Rico—have used the nation’s biggest stage to joyfully, unapologetically proclaim the greatness of their cultures before a nation that wants them to color inside the lines.
Before a President and a MAGA counter-movement that want them silenced. Before a colonial system that wants to see them broken.
Moreover, choosing the Super Bowl as the stage for such peaceful protests is incredibly meaningful.
The game, for all its significance to the football season it culminates, is one giant exhibition of consumerism, excess, and entertainment. The eye candy the halftime show, in particular, provides is meant to make you turn your brain off, watch, and buy things, not think.
So what better moment to disrupt everyone’s regularly scheduled programming?
Bad Bunny’s and Kendrick Lamar’s art offers a glimpse of a multicultural society that knows and confronts its history, not with shame but with clarity and courage, weaving its multitude of fabrics into the single garment of destiny Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. once spoke of.
On the other side, you have the threat of the monoculture—one that thrives on cultural appropriation and domination as its identity—that responds to critiques of colonialism and capitalism by declaring it should be allowed to exploit people in peace.
The contrast between the two shows and cultural positions reverberates far beyond the Super Bowl. Especially as people—undocumented, documented, and U.S. citizens alike—are snatched off the streets by federal agents, constitutional freedoms of speech and due process are ignored, and the President suggests nationalizing voting for the 2026 midterm elections.
Every statement, every act of resistance matters. And everyone, from Bad Bunny and Kendrick Lamar to students walking out of school to protest, can make a difference.
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