From the indigenous to the universal at the Benito Bowl
Photograph by J. Amill Santiago via Unsplash
Rev. Abigail Medina-Betancourt
Bad Bunny’s Super Bowl halftime show can be analyzed from so many perspectives that it could fill a book. I acknowledge from the outset that I will leave many areas uncovered — such as the silence surrounding the genocide in Palestine — due to space constraints. Much has already been said about this performance and its cultural, linguistic, decolonial, racial affirmation, and gender role significances, as well as its critique of entrenched power structures. I add my voice to this chorus of reflections from my context as a Puerto Rican woman living in one of the world’s oldest colonies, a socialist, and an ordained Baptist minister.
Benito Antonio Martínez Ocasio employs ancestral storytelling techniques to develop his masterful presentation. To hear a story, one doesn’t need to know how to read or write. Therefore, oral and visual storytelling is an excellent tool for popular education in this context, since understanding the language is not necessary to grasp the message.
In his performance, Benito weaves together a part of Puerto Rican history through various vignettes that begin in a sugarcane field labyrinth, where a diversity of professions and trades are depicted. Both in this labyrinth and in his other vignettes, the protagonists are working-class people, the same social class in which Benito grew up. Although they are Puerto Rican stories, they are also universal stories of the working class. Anyone, anywhere in the world, who belongs to the working class can identify with these images without needing to understand the lyrics.
“Estás escuchando música de Puerto Rico, de los barrios y de los caseríos” -Bad Bunny
When Bad Bunny performs “NUEVAYoL,” we see a scene born from the wave of Puerto Rican migration to the United States, fueled by the Manos a la Obra (Hands-on Work) program, which took place in the 1940s and 50s. The barrios Bad Bunny mentions in his song are not in affluent areas, but rather multicultural neighborhoods composed of the immigrant working class, where most of the Puerto Ricans who arrived in the United States during that wave settled.
These same barrios are now affected by gentrification — gentrification that extends to Puerto Rico and other countries, since this problem is not geographical, but rather one of class. This is why “Lo que le pasó a HAWAii” (What Happened to Hawaii) has become an anthem for the displaced, not just Puerto Ricans. It takes on greater significance that Puerto Rican Ricky Martin — the pioneer of the globalization of Latin pop — performed this lament about forced emigration. While it is true that Ricky is a multimillionaire and that his emigration was not forced, he did pay a high price in the 1990s to reach a global audience, such as singing in English and moving from Puerto Rico to gain more exposure. I would say that Ricky moved so that Benito could stay today.
When Bad Bunny says we’re listening to music from Puerto Rico, from the barrios and the housing projects, he’s bringing people from the margins to the forefront.
Ricky Martin’s performance is interrupted by “El Apagón” (The Blackout), just as the lives of millions of Puerto Ricans were interrupted by the general blackout that followed Hurricane Maria. This blackout has not yet been fully resolved, since inaction and government corruption ravage the country in the same way that the hurricane did. But, at the same time, this image is interwoven with “Lo que le pasó a HAWAii” (What Happened to Hawaii), since it caused a new wave of migration to the United States. The same is true for billions of people around the world, forced to migrate, affected by wars, famine, sieges, genocide, and the impunity of the perpetrators.
When Bad Bunny says we’re listening to music from Puerto Rico, from the barrios and the housing projects, he is — like Jesus — bringing people from the margins to the forefront, highlighting their human dignity. Benito recounts in an interview with The Fader that his mother raised him in the church, and I like to think that it was there he learned about what theologians like Gustavo Gutierrez call “Jesus’s preferential option for the poor” — the idea that God stands first with those on the margins. Today, Benito embodies the gospel of Jesus, even though how he does it makes many Christians uncomfortable.
“CAFé CON RON” begins to the rhythm of plena — described by Puerto Rican cultural historians as an “urban musical genre with African roots, created by the Puerto Rican working class” — and with the expression: “God bless America, I mean[…]” From there, he begins to mention all the names of the countries and colonies that make up the American continent. With this expression, Benito repeats what the rest of the American continent has always known: that America is a continent, not the single country of the United States of America (USA). What I found innovative is that, at this moment, Benito doesn’t highlight the Latin American identity (as other artists have already done), but rather the identity of all Americans on the continent, regardless of their linguistic or geographical divisions.
The stories Benito tells are as indigenous as they are universal. Through his narrative, Benito weaves the Puerto Rican experience with the truly American and what is universal. To do this, he uses the common thread of class identity, gender perspectives, migration, and other human experiences that connect us to the oppressed world. Benito takes us on a journey from Puerto Rico and the Caribbean to the United States, Latin America, and the Americas, uniting us with oppressed people everywhere. Bad Bunny took us from the particular to the universal in 13 minutes. Such is the power of storytelling.
Rev. Abigail Medina-Betancourt is national coordinator for Intercultural Engagement, American Baptist Home Mission Societies. Read the Spanish version of this article here.
The views expressed are those of the author and not necessarily those of American Baptist Home Mission Societies.
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