Bad Bunny challenged the meaning of 'America' at the Super Bowl

Bad Bunny’s Super Bowl half-time set is dense and rich, inviting rewatching to catch every thoughtful, exuberant detail despite running barely 14 minutes. My favorite moment comes a little more than nine minutes in, when the cuatro puertorriqueño appears in the hands of cuatrista José Eduardo Santana, just before Ricky Martin performs.

I spent months reporting an episode of the podcast La Brega about the cuatro and why it inspires Puerto Rican pride, so seeing it at the Super Bowl felt astonishing. Its presence raises deeper questions: if a colony has a national instrument, could Puerto Rico be a country?

For Bad Bunny—who advocates for Puerto Rican independence and flies the light blue flag associated with that stance—the answer is yes: Puerto Rico is an American country in the broadest sense, part of a bigger family that doesn’t revolve around the US. That idea runs through Bad Bunny’s work.

Puerto Rico

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