Within the days and weeks main as much as Unhealthy Bunny’s Tremendous Bowl halftime present, a nervous sort of hype swept America. The 31-year-old artist is, by some measures, the most well-liked working musician on the earth. However as a result of he nearly solely performs in Spanish and has spoken up in opposition to ICE, right-wing commentators steered he was too political for the time slot, whereas branding him with varied scary synonyms like “provocative” and “divisive.” Only a few hours earlier than the present, the influencer Jake Paul known as him “a faux American citizen performing who publicly hates America.”
Throughout his efficiency on Sunday night time, Unhealthy Bunny had a solution for that final one: “God bless America,” he introduced. However his whole efficiency rebuked the notion that he’s some culture-war proxy being foisted upon an American public that desires its stars to close up and sing. Sure, he stuffed this present with slogans and symbols signalling Puerto Rican and Latino delight at a time when federal brokers are menacing Spanish audio system and President Trump has declared English to be the nationwide language. However basically, the halftime was a blast: an instant-classic, exactly detailed, relentlessly stimulating medley rooted within the good-old-fashioned pleasure precept.
Unhealthy Bunny opened in what seemed like sugar cane fields labored by dancers dressed within the straw hats of jíbaros (Puerto Rico’s rural farmers). In opposition to this pastoral backdrop, Unhealthy Bunny stood trying trendy and fly, in a boxy white shirt patterned like an NFL jersey. He was rapping in Spanish to his smash “Tití Me Preguntó,” however the pigskin he held in his hand and the tie round his neck conveyed a transparent message to any viewer. He was right here for enterprise. He was right here to play ball.
Play he did. As he walked by way of the tropical hedge maze, he handed by whimsical set items together with a coconut vendor, a dominoes match, and a building website manned by—the best way to put this respectfully—scorching women. This was the primary of many awooga visuals to come back—mass twerking, a fleeting shot of guy-on-guy grinding, and Unhealthy Bunny executing his trademark crotch thrust. If any of this evokes scandal, it’ll be the wholesome form, giving America a break from fascism discourse to rehash now-quaint-seeming dustups brought on by the likes of Elvis, Janet Jackson, and Prince (the originator of what’s turning into a hallowed custom of Tremendous Bowl halftime crotchroversies).
Actually, what does it say concerning the state of the nation that the sight of excellent trying individuals doing slinky choreography feels … refreshing? It’s not just like the much-publicized conservative cultural wave of the 2020s has rolled again popular culture’s reliance on raunch. However this efficiency’s wealth of gyration appeared subtly throw-backy and weirdly healthful. Perhaps that was as a result of the grins on everybody’s faces conveyed sexiness with out porniness. The dancing and costumes took me again to being a younger teen watching the airbrushed sultriness of early 2000s MTV and being intrigued by the world that allegedly existed someplace outdoors my residence.
Unhealthy Bunny was certainly making an attempt to take viewers out of their residence, and into his. The sheer quantity of references to Puerto Rico defied any notion that the island is a minor participant in American tradition; moderately, we had been reminded that it’s a powerhouse home and world exporter. Puerto Rico gave us the archetypal reggaeton hit, Daddy Yankee’s “Gasolina,” which popped up for just a few moments tonight. Its musicians helped invent salsa music—which offered much-needed syncopation when Girl Gaga appeared to sing her usually plodding hit “Die With a Smile.” It gave us the sq. jaw and honeyed voice of Ricky Martin, who sang as effectively. And it gave us the night time’s headliner, who nodded on the significance of his personal success when he handed a Grammy to a boy who seemed like he may develop as much as sooner or later be, effectively, Unhealthy Bunny.
Finally, the power of the efficiency shifted from social gathering to assertion piece—but sensible stagecraft made that shift really feel climactic moderately than deflating. Exploding energy strains evoked {the electrical} outages which have plagued Puerto Rico lately. For many of the present, Unhealthy Bunny had been mugging merrily to the digicam, flaring his eyes and making hammy gestures for example his phrases. However now anger appeared to twitch in his face as he rapped his tune “El Apagón” (“The Energy Outage”). By have an effect on alone, he obtained throughout a way of betrayal that many Puerto Ricans of his age—generally known as the “disaster technology”—have spoken of feeling after a string of political scandals and pure disasters amid ongoing gentrification by mainlanders.
That message was, certainly, political. So was his culminating assertion of “God bless America,” which he adopted by itemizing nations in North and South America, thereby asserting the transnational nature of the tradition that he represents. Pushing towards the digicam with throngs of drummers, he closed by holding up a soccer with a message on it: “Collectively, We Are America.” It was a pointed message but in addition a conciliatory one, a unity slogan. Some individuals had been going to search for a combat anyway. “No person understands a phrase this man is saying,” complained Donald Trump on Reality Social, minutes after the efficiency, “and the dancing is disgusting.”
