As Bad Bunny heads to the Super Bowl this Sunday, Puerto Ricans in North Texas are gearing up for El Cornejo Malo’s halftime performance.
Arts advocates and artists KERA spoke to say his music engages memories, a deep history, resistance, culture and joy.
Clyde Valentin, who serves on the City of Dallas Office of Arts and Culture Advisory Commission, said “Debí Tirar Mas Fotos,” which just won Album of the Year at the Grammy Awards, evokes memories of visiting his cousins in Puerto Rico during the summer in his preteen years.
“Knocking down mangoes from the mango tree, walking to the beach, jumping in, snorkeling,” Valentin said. “Always in the water.”
Valentin, originally from New York, moved to North Texas 12 years ago to lead the community engagement efforts at Southern Methodist University’s Meadows School of the Arts. He is now an independent creative producer.
When Bad Bunny won Album of the Year on Sunday, Valentin said he and his wife jumped out of their seats and celebrated.
“The first thing he said was addressing Puerto Rico,” Valentin said. “For me that’s the extension of the diaspora that we are as a people, you know. We're bigger than 100 by 35 miles, the size of our island.”
While the NFL has received some criticism over its halftime show choice — Bad Bunny has been outspoken against immigration enforcement under the Trump administration — Valentin said the NFL selecting Bad Bunny was more about commerce than politics.
“It was the right decision, because the brother is hot, right?” he said. “So it makes a lot of sense. He's been on that stage already."
Valentin anticipates Puerto Rican culture will be featured prominently in the performance.
"Knowing Benito, he's going to shine a light on some important unknown Puerto Rican artists who are keeping folklorico and traditional forms alive,” he said. “I kind of expect maybe a couple of solo moments.”
To commemorate Bad Bunny’s performance Valentin said he will make what he called his legendary rice and beans, Boricua style, he said, cook some pollo a la parilla and have people over.
“The game is cool, you now, but we're really watching the show,” he said.
Bad Bunny is the reason Puerto Rican educator and cultural curator Shirley Pizarro said she’ll be watching Sunday’s game. She’s not much a football fan, but she said she’ll celebrate with her family during the halftime show with food, drinks and dance.
“I don't care about the game. I just want to have my flag,” she said. “I'm making my arroz con gandules. I'm going to cook my pernil and my adult kids want piña colada."
“We invited some other Puerto Rican friends and then we're just going to watch Benito, Bad Bunny.”
She said she’s looking forward to hearing her favorite Bad Bunny song,“Nuevayol,” which samples El Gran Combo de Puerto Rico’s iconic anthem “Un Verano en Nueva York.”
The song takes her back to a place and time visiting cousins in New York, after she and her family had moved to Puerto Rico when she was five years sold, she said.
“I've been in the place where they sell cañita, pitorro (a Puerto Rican alcoholic drink),” she said. “I remember visiting my family and my mom drove around those streets. I remember when my aunts were alive.”
She said many of Bad Bunny’s songs are rooted in emotion.
“It’s so deep and when somebody described what you have felt, you are connected, and you say ‘I'm not alone. I feel that. I recognize that,’" she said.
Poet, performer and educator Willy Richey, known in Dallas for his DaVerse Lounge poetry shows, said he cried hearing Bad Bunny’s acceptance speech in Spanish. Raised by a Puerto Rican mother and a white father in Ferriday, Louisiana, on the Mississippi River, he didn't grow up speaking Spanish with his family.
Richey said he grew up alongside both cultures, eating gumbo at home and arroz con leche on trips to Puerto Rico as a child.
He admits he didn’t like Bad Bunny at first, but things changed.
“When this album came out last year, I was so moved at how he integrated the sounds of traditional Puerto Rico,” Richey said.
That’s what he expects will be presented on the Super Bowl stage this Sunday.
“This album has transcended international culture,” Richey said. “It doesn't matter that he's speaking in Spanish. It's the sounds that he is using, the salsa, the plena, you know what I mean?"
He said Bad Bunny's music represents resiliency, joy and celebration for Puerto Ricans around the world.
“We overcome hurricanes, we overcome destruction, we overcame slavery, we overcome everything, because that's what Puerto Ricans do, no matter if resources are there or not, they overcome," Richey said.
The halftime performance, Richey said, will bring people together.
“It's going to be bright colors. It's going to be a lot of dancing. It's going to be lot of sounds,” he said. “I'm telling you right now, it's going to be as authentic a heartbeat[as]the arts can offer the world.”
Priscilla Rice is KERA’s communities reporter. Got a tip? Email her at price@kera.org.
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