Bad Bunny: Super Bowl Halftime Prep for Boomers

Get to know the record-breaking musical sensation from Puerto Rico

Edna Gundersen,

AARP

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En español

Published February 04, 2026

AARP (Medios y Media/Getty Images, Kevin Mazur/Getty Images for The Recording Academy, Kevin Mazur/WireImage/Getty Images)

Baby boomers have no problem recognizing Harvey, Thumper, Bugs and the Energizer Bunny. But Bad Bunny?

The Puerto Rican singer/rapper isn't as familiar to some of the 50-plus music demographic even after winning Album of the Year at the Grammys Sunday.

No wonder Bad Bunny struck some older football fans as an interesting choice for the Feb. 8 Super Bowl halftime performance. After all, his chief musical styles, Latin trap and reggaeton, didn’t exist during the early rock era.

Aside from “Oye Cómo Va,” Santana’s rock remake of the 1962 Tito Puente cha cha chá, and “La Bamba,” Ritchie Valens’ 1958 adaptation of a Mexican folk tune, the boomer songbook is all but devoid of hits in Spanish. Bad Bunny sings and raps almost exclusively in Spanish.

There is plenty to admire about the global superstar and loads to appreciate in the beat-heavy, mixed-genre music he has introduced around the world. Here’s a primer on the record-shattering sensation and an introductory playlist that will get any boomer’s booty moving.

The Rise of Bad Bunny

Bad Bunny, 31, was born Benito Antonio Martínez Ocasio and raised on the north central coast of Puerto Rico. A childhood photo of him scowling in a rabbit costume gave rise to his stage name. He grew up listening to the salsa and merengue favored by his father, a truck driver, and mother, a teacher. By the mid-2010s, his earliest recordings were causing a stir in Latin markets. He burst into the mainstream after rising on the SoundCloud streaming service and appearing in Cardi B’s “I Like It” and Drake’s “Mia” in 2018.

His debut album, X 100pre, arrived in December 2018 and peaked at No. 11 on the Billboard 200 chart. Since then, he has released six additional albums and topped the Billboard 200 four times with releases entirely in Spanish.

Last year’s DeBÍ TiRAR MáS FOToS (translation: “I should have taken more photos”) was up for three major Grammys: album of the year, best record and song for “DtMF.” He’s the only Spanish-language artist ever to rack up three top categories in the same year. DeBÍ was the most streamed album last year.

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Bad Bunny was the most-streamed artist in the world on Spotify in 2020, 2021, 2022 and 2025 (he was second in 2023 and 2024, behind Taylor Swift). He ranks first on YouTube’s most-viewed artists list, with 83.6 billion views.

He is a touring heavyweight. He had the highest-grossing tour on Billboard’s Year-End Top Tours chart in 2022. Last year’s world tour set attendance records around the world, including a 12-stadium run in Spain (that dwarfed sales of Taylor Swift’s Eras Tour stops) and fast sellouts in such non-Latin markets as Sweden, France, Poland and Italy. He starts this year at the top of Pollstar’s tour charts.

The Super Bowl Coup and Controversy

The NFL, along with Apple Music and Roc Nation (Jay-Z’s entertainment company), revealed on Sept. 28 that Bad Bunny had been selected to headline Super Bowl LX on Feb. 8 in Levi’s Stadium in Santa Clara, California. Rumors had circulated that ubiquitous pop star Taylor Swift would be picked, so the bombshell announcement thrilled Los Conejos (The Bunnies) and mystified some many older observers while also sparking political debate. A Quinnipiac University National Sports Poll released Oct. 27 showed that 48% of Americans approved the choice and 29% disapproved, with opinions split largely along party lines: thumbs up by 74% of Democrats and down by 63% of Republicans.

Bad Bunny received the award for Album of the Year at The 68th Annual Grammy Awards.

Stewart Cook/CBS via Getty Images

Why the flap? Bad Bunny has criticized President Trump over his immigration policy and response to Hurricane Maria in Puerto Rico. While he identifies as heterosexual, he is a force in redefining masculinity and challenges gender stereotypes and cultural norms, especially in the Latin community. He champions male vulnerability and denounces machismo.

Bad Bunny will be the Super Bowl’s fourth Latin act (after Jennifer Lopez, Shakira, Christina Aguilera and Gloria Estefan, all famous for their English hits) and the first to perform entirely in a foreign language.

The Super Bowl will air on NBC and Telemundo and stream on Peacock and NFL+. Last year’s game drew 127.7 million U.S. viewers (133.5 million for halftime performer Kendrick Lamar), the most-watched TV event in U.S. history. Given his broad reach and the NFL’s savvy move to tap into new markets and a younger audience, Bad Bunny could set a new record.

Decoding the Bunny Sound

Puerto Rican pride lies at the core of Bad Bunny’s music, a blend of hyperlocal lyrics and sounds that embrace every strain of Afro-Caribbean musical tradition that has touched the shores of his homeland. Accessible Latin pop, soul and rock are touchstones, but he fearlessly incorporates bossa nova, mambo, merengue and the bachata, whipping subgenres into a brazen, contemporary fusion.

Crowned “the king of Latin trap,” he draws heavily from trap and reggaeton, sounds unique to 21st-century mainstream records. Latin trap is a Puerto Rican twist on trap, a Southern hip-hop sound known for street lyrics and elaborate synthesized drums. Pioneered by rap artists, it broke through the underground in the 2010s and eventually seeped into hits by such pop, R&B and country stars as Ariana Grande (“7 Rings”), Beyoncé (“***Flawless”) and Lil Nas X (“Old Town Road”).

Reggaeton, born in Panama in the 1980s, exploded in Puerto Rico in the 1990s and spread across the U.S. and Europe by the mid-2000s. It’s a heady electronic cocktail of Jamaican dancehall, Caribbean sounds, Spanish-language toasting and singing, hip-hop and lyrics that primarily address inner-city struggles.

Bridging the Generation Gap

Older fans of Elvis Presley, The Beatles, Bob Dylan, Prince, Bruce Springsteen, Johnny Cash and David Bowie will relate to Bad Bunny on multiple levels. He rebels against authority and formulas, stretching boundaries to cast fresh alloys. His versatility evokes an era when artists rejected marketing pigeonholes. A nonconformist and innovator, he also cherishes his musical roots.

Bad Bunny performing in Mexico City.

Medios y Media/Getty Images

Rather than pander to the majority, Bad Bunny pulls listeners into his world, an authentic, intimate space where he confides his fear, anger and joy about relationships, politics, fame and mental health in his language, his accent, his slang, his musical idioms. Like the best rock and folk protest singers, he addresses social ills, violence and inequality without lecturing.

And while he is the supernova of streaming, Bad Bunny believes in the album format and tends to craft records with cohesive plot lines and vibes. He relies on high-tech production, but boomers turned off by modern machined music and processed vocals will find the emphasis on emotion, stories and an unfiltered voice refreshing.

Finally, how’s this for relatable? He’s a longtime wrestling fan who has stepped into the WWE ring multiple times. He first performed 2021 hit “Booker T,” named after the retired pro wrestler, at the WWE’s Royal Rumble and has name-checked numerous WWE heroes in his songs.

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