It’s been three days since the Super Bowl halftime show at Levi’s Stadium in Santa Clara, California, and the global phenomenon sparked by Bad Bunny’s performance shows no sign of abating.
The Puerto Rican rapper – the first Latino artist to perform entirely in Spanish as a headliner – has literally rewritten the rules of the world's most watched show, transforming it not just into a musical celebration, but into a profound celebration of Latin culture.
Who is Bad Bunny?
The world knows him as Bad Bunny, or as they call him south of the Rio Grande, El Conejo Malo : a name born by chance, from a childhood photograph of a sulking young Benito Antonio Martínez Ocasio wearing a bunny suit. From that image, a global brand was born, one that in just a few years became the most recognizable face in Latin music.
With six Grammys to his name, including three at the latest edition for "Debí Tirar Más Fotos," Bad Bunny was the first artist with an album entirely in Spanish to win the "Album of the Year" award. As of 2025, he has amassed twenty billion streams and is the only artist in the world to hold the record for most streams on Spotify four times.
His story is incredible: the son of a truck driver and a teacher, a former supermarket cashier in Puerto Rico, he emerged in 2016 with the track "Diles," which transformed him into the king of an emerging style on the island: Latin Trap. For the boy who bagged groceries and chased dreams, from that moment on, everything accelerated.
Records and wrestling
Six solo albums later, Ocasio has transformed into something entirely different: an unpredictable, elegant, politically active star. At thirty-one, he's the most important musician of his generation—the same generation, incidentally, as New York's new mayor, Zorhan Mamdani. A fearless activist, he's challenging Donald Trump in defense of immigrants and fighting the gentrification of his island nation. On stage at the Super Bowl, he carried the long-banned Puerto Rican flag, its "azul claro" blue, a tribute to independence.
His success didn't stop with music. Bad Bunny dabbled in wrestling, starred in films like "Bullet Train," and collaborated with fashion brands ranging from Adidas sneakers to Crocs and Calvin Klein underwear. Regularly at the center of global pop culture, he's gender-fluid and briefly dated Kendall Jenner. In 2022, he dressed as a woman on the cover of Harper's Bazaar.
Yet, the bigger he gets, the more local Benito remains. Like when, to avoid exposing his fans to threats from ICE—whom he heavily criticized at the Grammy Awards—he canceled his US concerts for a series of 31 shows in San Juan. His music is a dialogue with his roots: salsa, reggaeton, trap, dembow, and bolero, alongside traditional Puerto Rican rhythms like bomba and plena.
The Latin Show
A tension that exploded on the Super Bowl stage, where he blended tradition and modernity with the presence of fellow countryman Ricky Martin and a snippet of "Gasolina," paying homage to those who paved the way for him. And the classy touch of Lady Gaga , who performed a salsa version of "Die With a Smile," a 2024 song she duetted with Bruno Mars, rearranged in a Latin key for the occasion.
A huge microcosm of Puerto Rican and Latin American culture (which greatly angered Donald Trump): sets inspired by the colorful casitas of San Juan, motifs related to life in the sugarcane fields, and references to street festivals and popular traditions.
Zara's Choice
For one of the world's biggest pop culture showcases, Bad Bunny decided to defy expectations by wearing an all-Zara outfit, championing a more "accessible" approach to fashion. The look, styled by his stylists Storm Pablo and Marvin Douglas Linares, consisted of an all-cream ensemble that combined a sports shirt emblazoned with his last name, "Ocasio," and the number 64, matching pants, and "BadBo 1.0" sneakers in collaboration with Adidas, along with matching gloves and an Audemars Piguet Royal Oak watch.
The meaning behind the number “64”
The number “64” on the shirt was no coincidence: Bad Bunny explained that it is a tribute to his beloved uncle Tio Cutito, born in 1964, who instilled in him his passion for football, and who sadly passed away two years ago.
(Unioneonline/D)