Bad Bunny is a global crossover force, and the embodiment of where American culture is headed.
(September 30, 2025) – Jay-Z is heavily involved in deciding who performs at the Super Bowl halftime show each year. This year he and the NFL awarded the honor to international superstar Bad Bunny, owner of three Grammy Awards, four U.S. No. 1 albums (including the best-selling album of 2022) and several sold-out tours, all in this decade!
But Jay-Z didn’t just book Bad Bunny for the Super Bowl LX halftime show — he lit a cigar, leaned back in his executive chair, and extended a big middle finger to the MAGA regime.
Right now, aside from Taylor Swift (who the NFL was allegedly also negotiating with), there is no bigger artist on the world stage than Bad Bunny, whose next global tour—in support of his most recent No. 1 album, Debí Tirar Más Fotos—has reportedly pre-sold more than 2.6 million tickets, prompting promoter Live Nation to compare the Puerto Rican rapper to the likes of legendary touring acts Swift, Coldplay, the Rolling Stones, and Michael Jackson. He’s also been at or near the top of the world’s most streamed artists list for years. His selection as the halftime performer for Super Bowl LX makes perfect sense.
Jay-Z, 55, whose Roc Nation has been in partnership with the NFL since 2019 (and has a deal through 2028) to oversee halftime performances, had this to say about his latest selection: “What Benito has done and continues to do for Puerto Rico is truly inspiring. We are honored to have him on the world’s biggest stage.”
It’s what Jay-Z didn’t mention (and shouldn’t have to) that spoke volumes: Puerto Rico is ours. It’s a U.S. territory whose native inhabitants are U.S. citizens. They can travel freely in our states, they can join our military and fight in our wars (and be subject to the draft), and their main religion is Christianity, like most of the U.S. The only rights they don’t have that other U.S. citizens do is the ability to vote in U.S. presidential elections or have full representation in the U.S. Congress. Bad Bunny’s selection is thus validation for an island that is still viewed by most as a second-class territory.
That Jay-Z chose an American citizen from PR to headline SBLX is consistent with his broader vision to “diversify and modernize” halftime shows. In fact, that’s exactly why the NFL hired him in 2019. Since then, the bookings have been J-Lo/Shakira (with Bad Bunny making a cameo), Dr. Dre/Snoop Dogg/Mary J. Blige, The Weeknd, Rihanna, Usher, Kendrick Lamar, and now Benito as a headliner. These were deliberate steps to center hip-hop, Latin, and R&B voices on the grand stage. Bad Bunny was the next logical choice in this arc, not some shock move.
Yet, the backlash from MAGA world — “he’s not American,” “he’s too political (because he endorsed Trump’s opponent Kamala Harris),” “he only raps in Spanish,” “he refuses to tour in the U.S.” — has been loud and clear (and mostly wrong). His announced decision to not include the U.S. on his next tour was out of concern for his Latino fans potentially being indiscriminately targeted at those venues by ICE agents, and who could blame him?
It also underscores exactly why he belongs on the SB stage. The NFL is an increasingly global brand. There are a record seven regular season games being played overseas this season (in countries like Brazil, Spain, Ireland, Germany, and the U.K.). Commissioner Roger Goodell has stated his intent to have every NFL team play one international game during the regular season, possibly as early as 2026. The NFL also has a massive and growing fan base among the Caribbean and Latin diaspora, and Bad Bunny performing in February will only accelerate that growth.
With that backdrop, SB halftime shows are supposed to be global, forward-facing, and culturally expansive, not merely a platform for American nationalism. Bad Bunny’s selection meets all those criteria. The backlash from MAGA just proves his impact: if they weren’t threatened, they wouldn’t care.
But the selection of the “Mónaco” rapper goes beyond what he represents culturally. It’s also his counter-culturalism that triggers anti-woke sentiment from the extreme right. He openly defies traditional machismo by playing with gender norms, wearing skirts, painting his nails, and supporting LGBTQ+ issues. He’s expressed his own sexual fluidity in past interviews (though he identifies as heterosexual “for now”). The fact that Jay-Z selected him is a clear f-you to MAGA’s regressive gender/sexuality panic. It’s also a cultural statement about what America looks like now, despite efforts to the contrary.
But the “99 Problems” rapper has been making these statements ever since he took over the reins of the NFL’s entertainment department. In 2020, amid the “build the wall” rhetoric of Donald Trump’s first presidency, Latina artists Shakira and J-Lo did the honors. In 2022, hip-hop took center stage as DEI efforts became increasingly targeted. This past year, Kendrick Lamar—a known provocateur and Pulitzer Prize recipient—performed in the first SB of Trump’s second term, and didn’t disappoint.
And now Bad Bunny will get to do the next one amid today’s anti-immigrant, anti-Spanish language hostility. It’s a middle finger to xenophobia, to Spanish-language erasure, and to the notion that only English-speaking acts can headline America’s biggest stage. In fact, this could be Jay-Z’s biggest middle-finger statement yet.
The NFL has been criticized in the past for how it handled the Colin Kaepernick kneeling controversy — from both sides of the political spectrum. Perhaps the league will never fully redeem itself in the eyes of those who believe the former quarterback should have had a full career. But the hiring of Jay-Z was a small step toward redemption that, so far, has yielded big results.
The bottom line is that, with Bad Bunny as this season’s headliner, the NFL didn’t just pick a performer, it picked a side—against hate. And Jay-Z has made it perfectly clear that hate doesn’t get the final word. Culture does.
And right now, culture speaks Spanish, dresses fluid, takes a stand against ICE, and answers to the name Bad Bunny.
DJRob
DJRob (he/him) is a freelance music blogger from the East Coast who covers R&B, hip-hop, disco, pop, rock and country genres – plus lots of music news and current stuff! You can follow him on Bluesky at @djrobblog.bsky.social, X (formerly Twitter) at @djrobblog, on Facebook or on Meta’s Threads.
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