For his Super Bowl halftime show, Bad Bunny transformed the stadium in Northern California into a vivid recreation of Puerto Rican life, using familiar imagery and cultural references to ground the 13-minute performance in memory and place. Long before he launched into Tití Me Preguntó, the set was already communicating a story through symbols rooted in everyday experience.
The show opened in a sugarcane field, referencing one of Puerto Rico’s most significant historical crops from the late 19th and early 20th centuries. While the island later shifted away from agriculture, the image of the jíbaro, or rural farmer, remains a powerful cultural symbol. These figures, often depicted wearing traditional straw hats known as pavas, continue to represent resilience and identity.
Bunny himself was dressed entirely in white, a nod to the practical clothing worn by jíbaros to cope with the Caribbean heat. The colour also carries a broader cultural meaning, reflected in the phrase “esta vestido de punta en blanco”, which suggests being well dressed or carefully presented.
Throughout the performance, the stage resembled a roadside neighbourhood. A coconut stand selling “coco frío” evoked informal Caribbean stalls offering fresh coconut water, while domino tables, a nail salon and small vendor setups reflected common social spaces. The imagery leaned into everyday familiarity rather than spectacle, reinforcing the intimacy of the setting.
Food and leisure also played a role. A piragua stand, serving shaved ice, featured syrup bottles labelled with various Latin American flags. This visual motif extended into the wider performance, acknowledging shared cultural threads across the Americas. Later appearances by boxers Xander Zayas and Emiliano Vargas, wearing Puerto Rican and Mexican flags respectively, referenced long-standing sporting rivalries and regional pride.
The stage was populated by figures from across the Americas, including musicians, actors and athletes with diverse cultural backgrounds. Their presence reinforced the idea of cultural overlap and exchange, rather than a singular national narrative.
Musical references were layered with visual cues. A projection of the sapo concho cartoon, often associated with Bad Bunny’s work, appeared alongside live orchestration by Nicaraguan conductor Giancarlo Guerrero. These moments tied the performance to both personal and regional creative traditions.
One of the most discussed scenes involved a wedding ceremony followed by a surprise appearance by Lady Gaga, who wore a flor de maga, Puerto Rico’s national flower. Nearby, a child sleeping across plastic chairs subtly mirrored a familiar sight at large family gatherings, grounding the moment in lived reality.
The celebration continued with appearances by figures such as Toñita, owner of Brooklyn’s Caribbean Social Club, a space closely tied to Puerto Rican community life in New York. Visual references to “Conejo” nodded quietly to Bad Bunny’s stage persona, El Conejo Malo.
Later, Ricky Martin performed Lo Que Le Pasó a Hawaii seated on white plastic chairs beneath a plantain tree, echoing imagery from Debí Tirar Más Fotos. The set blended nostalgia with recognisable domestic scenes.
The performance concluded with a striking tableau of power poles during El Apagón, referencing recurring power outages and collective memory. A light blue Puerto Rican flag appeared towards the end, followed by a roll call of countries across the Americas, framing the show as an exploration of shared identity through symbolism rather than spectacle.
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