Pat Haden, Vince Evans, Sean Salisbury, Rodney Peete, Matt Cassel, Todd Marinovich, Rob Johnson, Carson Palmer, Matt Leinart, Mark Sanchez, Caleb Williams. Just a few of the great USC quarterbacks who went on to have NFL careers, yet never won a Super Bowl. Congratulations to Sam Darnold, the first USC quarterback to win the Super Bowl. I will always remember Sam’s amazing performance in the 2017 Rose Bowl game against Penn State. Sam was a redshirt freshman that year. He had the heart of a champion then and still does now.
Dave Ring Manhattan Beach
Sam Darnold’s odyssey, from first-round bust to Super Bowl champion, is straight out of a Hollywood movie. Like a phoenix rising from the ashes, Darnold proved success in football, like life, is not always linear. He has now won more Super Bowls than his 2017 draft class colleagues, Baker Mayfield, Josh Allen and Lamar Jackson, combined.
President Trump told the New York Post that music artist Bad Bunny was a “terrible choice” to headline the 2026 Super Bowl halftime show and that the NFL’s selection of the Puerto Rican singer and rapper sows “hatred.”
Department of Homeland Security adviser Corey Lewandowski suggested that Bad Bunny loathes the U.S. “It’s so shameful that they’ve decided to pick somebody who just seems to hate America so much to represent them at the halftime game,” he told conservative podcaster Benny Johnson.
Sen. Tommy Tuberville (R-Ala.) said on Monday that Bad Bunny disseminates “anti-American propaganda.”
The upshot: Bad Bunny (aka Benito Antonio Martínez Ocasio) is an enemy of the state. An outsider who doesn’t possess American values. A Super Bowl wrecker.
Bad Bunny took home multiple trophies from the 68th Grammy Awards last weekend in Los Angeles, including for album of the year. Very American, sir.
(Matt Winkelmeyer / Getty Images for the Recording Academy)
Heated debate around who is worthy to perform the halftime show is an American tradition (Prince, yes. The Red Hot Chili Peppers, no). But now, unsurprisingly, politics are part of that debate, so the mere fact that Bad Bunny is brown and Latino and sings in Spanish is seen by some as an affront to the right. Clearly the “Woke Bowl” is disrespecting the tough-on-immigration president, and in Español, no less.
But Bad Bunny is an American citizen, as are most people born in Puerto Rico after 1898, thanks to the Jones-Shafroth Act of 1917. Bad Bunny, born in 1994, made the deadline with 96 years to spare. If the fear is that foreigners are coming here to take our jobs and ruin beloved American traditions, there are plenty of nonnative artists to grouse about.
For decades, outsiders have foisted their foreign music upon us at the Super Bowl between commercials for Doritos and Budweiser.
The United Kingdom’s Phil Collins played the 2000 Super Bowl XXXIV Halftime Show, as did Enrique Iglesias, who is from Spain. The Irishmen of U2 stole jobs away from Americans when they played the 2002 Super Bowl. The following year it was sneaky Canadian Shania Twain and a sus character from England referred to only as Sting.
Then came bad hombre after bad hombre from the UK: Paul McCartney, the Rolling Stones, the Who, Coldplay. And don’t even get me started on Shakira, gyrating her Colombian self into 2020’s Super Bowl LIV Halftime Show, or the following year, the Weeknd using his sweet voice to distract from the fact he’s Canadian.
Remember all the anti-immigrant furor around those aforementioned performances? Of course not — because there was none. And this year, if the delicately reunited U.K. duo Oasis was to pull things together for 2026 and play the Super Bowl, it most certainly wouldn’t inspire the same kind of vitriol.
The right remembers that Bad Bunny criticized the Trump administration for its handling of Puerto Rico’s hurricane recovery, and that that he has spoken out against ICE’s inhumane treatment of immigrants. But calling Bad Bunny a dissenter is too direct, too Stalinist. It’s better to cast doubt upon the singer’s loyalty to America via thinly veiled racist rhetoric.
Turning Point USA, the right-wing group founded by Charlie Kirk and helmed by his wife, Erika Kirk, following his assassination, has organized its own counter-concert called the “All-American Halftime Show”. It will star rap-rocker Kid Rock and country artists Brantley Gilbert, Lee Brice and Gabby Barrett. The show is counter-programmed to compete with the Super Bowl halftime show, airing on X and conservative networks such as TBN and OAN around the same time as Bad Bunny’s set.
When the “alternative” show’s lineup was announced this week, Kid Rock took a jab at Bad Bunny in a statement: “He’s said he’s having a dance party, wearing a dress, and singing in Spanish? Cool. We plan to play great songs for folks who love America.”
Kid Rock isn’t known to wear dresses on stage, as Bad Bunny has done, but it’s unclear which songs of his he’ll play in the name of “loving America.”
Turning Point spokesman Andrew Kolvet said the show will reflect conservative values such as “faith, family, and freedom,” so Kid Rock likely won’t perform his 2001 track “Cool, Daddy Cool,” where he sings “Young ladies, young ladies, I like ‘em underage see / Some say that’s statutory, but I say it’s mandatory.” It’s also unlikely he’ll bust out his 2007 song “Lowlife (Living the Highlife)”: “I make Black music for the white man / Keep cocaine upon my nightstand.”
One thing is certain: He’ll continue to sing Trump’s praises, in English.
A few months back, a discussion broke out in the De Los chat about whether or not Bad Bunny would win album of the year at the 68th Grammy Awards for his LP “Debí Tirar Más Fotos.”
I was firmly in the “yes” camp from the day the nominations were announced and I was right!
But if I’m being honest, I had my doubts that it would happen until the second that presenter Harry Styles called out the Puerto Rican singer’s name Sunday night.
Those in the “no” camp — who were still rooting for him to win — had history in their favor. It’s so rare for any major awards show, but especially the Grammys, to recognize artists at the peak of their powers. It’s almost as if these voting bodies feel that some (usually Black) artists must go through a weird humiliation ritual before being deemed worthy.
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Really it was less so that I believed Bad Bunny would win as much as I felt that he needed to win.
The past year has been exceedingly trying for the Latinx community as Immigration and Customs Enforcement raids have been conducted throughout the country. It has oftentimes felt as though being Latinx — looking a certain way, speaking Spanish, having certain names — is a crime. I don’t know how many times I’ve seen videos of or heard heartbreaking stories of Latinx people being separated from their families, harassed or even killed due to activities of federal agents.
So even if it was just a moment of recognition for Bad Bunny, I had a lot riding on one win for Latinx people. A win for an album that is unapologetically in Spanish, explored ideas of resistance toward colonization and dared to be joyful, would mean something to me.
When he won, I had the same reaction as him. I couldn’t believe it and I cried — genuine tears in my Latina eyes.
It felt like an acknowledgment that Latinx people exist and matter. I was also moved when he explicitly shouted out immigrant and Latinx communities. There was just something that felt radical, too, in him giving the majority of his acceptance speech in Spanish.
De Los writer Andrea Flores also had faith in Bad Bunny’s Grammys viability from the very beginning.
“I knew Bad Bunny was going to win big at the Grammy Awards the moment he released this album,” she told me. “Bad Bunny made music for Puerto Rico, and the world listened.”
“I cried when I saw that Bad Bunny won album of the year. For me, it felt like sweet vindication for Latinx artists — reggaetoneros, more specifically — who have long been ignored, and at times vilified, by mainstream media for so many years. But what made me even more emotional was seeing posts on X showing Bad Bunny in 2016 as a bag boy at a local Puerto Rican supermarket. He looks familiar in that picture, like a cousin, brother or childhood friend. That was only 10 years ago. It’s proof to me that so much can change if you believe in your art and in yourself.”
It’s weird that a Latinx artist from an American colony is the most powerful cultural figure in the country at the same time that Latinx people face the most tenuous situation in the U.S. that I’ve seen in my life.
When Bad Bunny takes the stage for the Super Bowl halftime show on Sunday, I wish he’d get up there and call out ICE again on an even-bigger stage or do some kind of spectacular act of protest against the vile political class that has always and continues to push through discriminatory policies against non-white communities.
It’d be awesome if that happens, but even if it doesn’t, there will still be something profoundly radical about him simply being there and performing exclusively in Spanish.
(Jackie Rivera / For The Times; Martina Ibáñez-Baldor / Los Angeles Times)
The latest on Trump’s immigration enforcement
(Joel Angel Juarez / Getty Images)
After killing two U.S. citizens, forcibly extracting immigrants and using force against protestors, some 700 federal agents are being pulled out of Minnesota. About 2,000 officers will remain in the state, White House border czar Tom Homan said early this week.
On Tuesday, immigration officers in Minneapolis pulled their guns on and arrested protestors who were trailing their vehicles, the AP reported.
The duo was released thanks to a ruling from the U.S. District Judge Fred Biery.
“[T]he case has its genesis in the ill-conceived and incompetently-implemented government pursuit of daily deportation quotas, apparently even if it requires traumatizing children,” the judge wrote in his ruling.
Stories we read this week that we think you should read
Unless otherwise noted, stories below were published by the Los Angeles Times.
Bad Bunny is constantly making history. Last Sunday he broke a new record by winning album of the year at the Grammys for his 2025 album, “Debí Tirar Más Fotos,” which was the first fully Spanish-language album to claim the title; and come Feb. 8, a.k.a. Super Bowl Sunday, he’ll be the headlining act at the Super Bowl halftime show.
Yet he is also teaching history. Bad Bunny’s latest record is not only a celebration of Puerto Rico and its people, but it offers a window into some of the challenges the embattled territory is currently facing — including massive migration, displacement and an infrastructure on the brink of collapse. In a moment when education is under attack, both in the United States and Puerto Rico, Bad Bunny is using pop culture’s biggest stage to offer the world a history lesson. And in this political context, that matters greatly.
In December 2024, I was contacted by Bad Bunny’s team to produce 17 pages outlining Puerto Rican history, to pair with each song’s YouTube visualizer for “DTMF.” Altogether, they have been viewed more than 775 million times.
I later produced 40 slides jam-packed with historical and cultural facts about Puerto Rico, which were screened at Bad Bunny’s 31-show residency in San Juan. These ranged from facts about the history of women’s suffrage to the founding of Puerto Rico’s oldest punk band, La Experiencia de Toñito Cabanillas.
When Bad Bunny was announced as the NFL’s choice to headline the halftime show, I was hardly surprised by the backlash from conservatives — including multiple Fox News hosts, podcasters and even President Trump, who said, “I don’t know who he is. I don’t know why they’re doing it … [It’s] crazy.”
As communities of color celebrated on social media, critics raised two questions: Why would a Spanish-speaking artist — even if he is the most-streamed artist on Earth — be chosen for that stage? And why wouldn’t they choose a more patriotic, Anglo-American artist?
While undoubtedly xenophobic in nature, these questions highlight their acute ignorance about the place that birthed Bad Bunny, and its ongoing entanglement with the United States.
Puerto Rico was first colonized by the Spanish from 1493 until 1898, the year that the United States occupied the country as part of the Spanish-American War. Later, in 1917, Puerto Ricans became U.S. citizens through the Jones Law. Eventually, we drafted a constitution and became a Commonwealth of the United States in 1952. But there is never one single historical narrative.
What these facts occlude, however, is that Puerto Ricans are second-class citizens who cannot vote for the president — and those in the archipelago are not fully protected by the U.S. Bill of Rights. According to the U.S. Supreme Court’s early-20th century Insular Cases, we belong to the United States, but we are not part of it.
Put simply: We are a colony of the United States in the 21st century.
When drafting the historical narratives for “DTMF,” Bad Bunny understood that Puerto Rican history is often unknown, even to our own people. He was interested in making history available for those who don’t have access to higher education. He wanted me to write these narratives in a candid manner to be read by people in the barriadas y caserios (working-class neighborhoods and the projects). These were the places where I came of age in Puerto Rico.
With the success of “DTMF,” Puerto Rican history was amplified to the world. I’ve had countless conversations with journalists from around the globe, who marveled at how little they knew about Puerto Rico’s history or its relationship to the United States. This is precisely what I think drives those debates about language and who gets the right to claim Americanness — a lack of information.
And even though Bad Bunny is a U.S. citizen, conservatives have organized an alternative “All-American Halftime Show,” which reveals how “Americanness” is policed through language and race. This is the product of willful ignorance.
Puerto Rico’s history is also that of Latin American, Caribbean, United States and Latinx communities. I believe Bad Bunny’s performance will invite people to understand the beauty and complexity of our people’s history, even if it makes outsiders uncomfortable. That he will also be doing so entirely in Spanish in a moment when Latinx people in the United States are being arrested or interrogated by federal agents for speaking in Spanish — or simply for having an accent? That matters.
Of course, artists alone will not save us from the perils of racism and xenophobia — I learned that from my time in the punk community. We cannot just wait on anyone, especially not celebrities, to change institutions without some people power to back them up.
Yet given his enormous reach — just this week his latest album hit No. 1 on Apple Music in China — Bad Bunny has the power to move the cultural needle. And if there’s one thing to take from the Grammys ceremony last Sunday, it’s that he’s not alone — other artists have taken a stand on anti-immigrant violence. They are living up to the moment. That matters too.
So while conservatives organize their bland counter to the Super Bowl halftime show — with none other than Kid Rock as headliner — Bad Bunny will be offering the world a much more valuable history lesson, full of sazón, batería y reggaetón.
Jorell Meléndez-Badillo is the author of “Puerto Rico: A National History”and associate professor of Latin American and Caribbean History at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
Following Bad Bunny’s landmark album of the year win at the 68th Grammy Awards for “Debí Tirar Más Fotos,” Ricky Martin penned a letter of appreciation to commemorate the moment.
In an opinion piece for the Puerto Rican newspaper El Nuevo Día published Tuesday, the Boricua hitmaker said Bad Bunny’s accomplishment stirred deep feelings within him.
“Benito, brother, seeing you win three Grammy Awards, one of them for album of the year, with a production entirely in Spanish, touched me deeply,” Martin wrote. “Not only as an artist, but as a Puerto Rican who has walked stages around the world carrying his language, his accent and his history.”
In addition to becoming the first all-Spanish album of the year winner, the “Nuevayol” artist took home the Grammy Awards for música urbana album and global music performance for the track “EoO” on Sunday.
Martin further called Bad Bunny’s achievement a “human” and “cultural” win, lauding him for not bending to the will of anyone who tried to change his sound in any way.
“You won without changing the color of your voice. You won without erasing your roots. You won by staying true to Puerto Rico,” Martin wrote. “You stayed true to your language, your rhythms and your authentic narrative.”
Martin, who first broke out as a solo musical act in the mid-’90s, became an international superstar off the back of his Spanish-language hits including 1995’s “María,” 1998’s “Vuelve” and “Perdido Sin Ti.”
He reached a new strata of stardom after his track “La Copa de Vida” was used as the official anthem for the 1998 FIFA World Cup. That song charted in over 60 countries and was translated into English. He landed his biggest hit with “Livin’ La Vida Loca,” which was the lead single from his 1999 self-titled English album.
When accepting his album of the year award Sunday night, Bad Bunny addressed the crowd predominantly in Spanish and spoke of the strugglesof the immigrant experience.
“I want to dedicate this award to all the people who had to leave their homeland, their country, to follow their dreams,” he said in English.
“Puerto Rico, believe me when I say that we are so much bigger than 100 by 35 and there is nothing that exists that we can’t accomplish,” the “Dakiti” artist said in Spanish. “Thank God, thank you to the academy, thank you to all the people who have believed in me throughout my whole career. To all the people who worked on this album. Thank you, Mami, for giving birth to me in Puerto Rico. I love you.”
The 54-year-old singer also showed love to Bad Bunny for using his platform to show solidarity for vulnerable communities.
“What touched me most about seeing you on the Grammys stage was the audience’s silence when you spoke,” Martin wrote. “When you defended the immigrant community, when you called out a system that persecutes and separates, you spoke from a place I know very well where fear and hope coexist, where millions live between languages, borders and deferred dreams.”
Martin concluded his letter by thanking Bad Bunny for reminding him and showing other Puerto Ricans that there is power in being true and authentic to yourself.
“This achievement is for a generation to whom you taught that their identity is non-negotiable and that success is not at odds with authenticity,” Martin wrote.
“This was for Puerto Ricans, for all our Latino brothers and sisters who dream in Spanish, for those crossing seas and borders wearing their cultures like a flag. From the heart, from one Boricua to another, with respect and love, I thank you for reminding us that when one of ours succeeds, we all succeed.”
When it was announced in the fall that Puerto Rican singer and rapper Bad Bunny was chosen to headline the Super Bowl LX halftime show, some folks took it personally.
Why not an American pop star (he is) who speaks English (he does) and likes the president (good luck, did you watch the Grammy Awards?)?! The right felt slighted, again, this time as the victim of a great left-wing conspiracy to turn football’s biggest night against them.
Then Turning Point USA — the conservative organization founded by Charlie Kirk and helmed by his wife, Erika Kirk, following his assassination — came up with an idea. They’d put on their own show in the barn, so to speak. Performers’ sets would be in English, unlike most of Bad Bunny’s material. And this great display of American-ness would take place during the Super Bowl, stealing away viewers and ratings from that other guy with the funny name.
On Monday, Turning Point finally announced the lineup for its counter-event, the “All-American Halftime Show.” Described by Fox News as a “star-studded alternative to the Super Bowl halftime show,” the roster’s brightest luminary is Kid Rock, who hasn’t had a hit song since Obama’s first year in office. The rest of the lineup consists of country artists you’ll likely have to Google to identify (Brantley Gilbert, Lee Brice and Gabby Barrett). Their sets will be streamed live on Sunday around 5 p.m., the same time Bad Bunny is slated to perform at Santa Clara’s Levi’s Stadium. It can be watched on Turning Point USA’s YouTube, X and Rumble channels, alongside conservative networks such as Daily Wire+, Real America’s Voice, TBN and OAN. Additional musical entertainers will be announced, the organization’s website says.
Kid Rock when he wasn’t wearing an American flag as a poncho.
(Pool Photo)
“We’re approaching this show like David and Goliath,” Kid Rock (aka Robert Ritchie) said in a statement. “Competing with the pro football machine and a global pop superstar is almost impossible … or is it?”
It is impossible, of course. Bad Bunny (aka Benito Antonio Martínez Ocasio) is an American pop sensation who has conquered the globe with a vibrant mix of reggaeton, Latin pop, rap and R&B. The 31-year-old was Spotify’s most-streamed artist of 2025 and made history just a couple of days ago at the Grammy Awards when he became the first Spanish-language artist to win album of the year.
Sunday, he will reach an even wider audience as part of the country’s most-watched television event when the New England Patriots face off against the Seattle Seahawks.
But Kid Rock, 55, appears to have high hopes, with an opportunity to regain relevance likely at the top of his wish list. There’s no better way to gain attention than ripping on the most popular artist around. “He’s said he’s having a dance party, wearing a dress, and singing in Spanish?” said Kid Rock of Bad Bunny. “Cool. We plan to play great songs for folks who love America.”
The “Bawitdaba” singer is familiar with right-wing outrage over a halftime show wardrobe choice, and knows what it’s like to have your patriotism questioned by primed mobs. In 2004, he was one of several performers flanking Super Bowl headliner Janet Jackson. He angered conservatives when he wore a defaced American flag as a poncho and later tossed the flag/garment into the crowd.
But that was then, this is now. There are windmills to slay, crises to fabricate, rings to kiss. And headlining a spite concert provides a great distraction from the real issues plaguing Trump’s presidency, be it the soaring cost of living, Americans killed by ICE agents under his watch, or the nausea-inducing contents of the Epstein files.
Are we still talking about those? Yes, we are. The New York Times identified more than 38,000 references to Trump, his family and his Mar-a-Lago Club in the latest batch of emails, government files, videos and other records released by the Justice Department. Previous installments of the Epstein files, which the department released late last year, included 130 files with Trump-related references.
No wonder his followers need a distraction.
Bad Bunny can take the heat. He used his acceptance speech at Sunday night’s Grammys ceremony in Los Angeles to condemn the Trump administration’s nationwide immigration crackdown. “Before I say thanks to God, I’m going to say ‘ICE out,’” he said. “We’re not savages. We’re not animals. We’re not aliens. We are humans, and we are Americans.”
The official Super Bowl halftime show on Sunday will feature Bad Bunny, the Grammy winner for album of the year, at the height of his powers and influence. Those upset by his onstage comments about the dignity of Latinos and immigrants, however, can turn to a competing bill featuring Kid Rock and Gabby Barrett.
Rock, the perennial MAGA raconteur and country-rock singer, will perform for the far-right activist group Turning Point USA’s counterprogramming event streaming across the conservative mediasphere. Turning Point USA is the activist group founded by the late Charlie Kirk, who was killed last year at a speaking event in Utah.
“We plan to play great songs for folks who love America,” Rock said in a statement announcing the bill. “We’re approaching this show like David and Goliath. Competing with the pro football machine and a global pop superstar is almost impossible … or is it?”
“He’s said he’s having a dance party, wearing a dress and singing in Spanish? Cool. We plan to play great songs for folks who love America,” Rock said, in an overt jab at the actual Super Bowl halftime show headliner.
Veteran country acts Lee Brice and Brantley Gilbert and Barrett, an “American Idol” alum with a 2019 Hot 100 hit in “I Hope,” will also perform.
While Rock’s right-wing politics have largely eclipsed his musical relevance in 2026, he’s recently tried to position himself as a power broker for MAGA-friendly concerts with just enough plausible appeal for more neutral country and rock fans. His planned 2026 touring festival, Rock the Country, is set to feature Blake Shelton, recent Grammy winner Jelly Roll, Creed and Miranda Lambert, but lost Ludacris and Morgan Wade following blowback from fans.
When Bad Bunny was booked for the Super Bowl in October, House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) said, “I didn’t even know who Bad Bunny was. But it sounds like a terrible decision, in my view, from what I’m hearing. It sounds like he’s not someone who appeals to a broader audience.”
“There are so many eyes on the Super Bowl — a lot of young, impressionable children. And, in my view, you would have Lee Greenwood, or role models, doing that. Not somebody like this, ” he added.
President Trump said a bill featuring the Grammy-winning Puerto Rican superstar — and the famously anti-Trump punk band Green Day — was part of the reason he would not attend the game this year. “I’m anti-them. I think it’s a terrible choice,” he said. “All it does is sow hatred. Terrible.”
History was made in more than one way at Sunday night’s 68th Grammy Awards.
Bad Bunny’s “Debí Tirar Más Fotos” won album of the year — the first Spanish-language LP to take the Recording Academy’s highest honor. Kendrick Lamar and SZA’s “Luther” was named record of the year, making Lamar the winningest rapper in Grammy history (and just the fourth artist to go back-to-back for the record prize). Then there were Billie Eilish and her brother, Finneas O’Connell, who took song of the year with “Wildflower”; they’re now the only songwriters with three wins in that prestigious category.
To go by demographics, the ceremony clearly embodied the diversity gains the academy has been saying proudly are happening among its 15,000 voting members. But if new kinds of faces are becoming Grammy darlings, the music they’re being recognized for still upholds many of the academy’s old values. A night for making history was also a night for reveling in it.
Take “Luther,” a soulful hip-hop slow jam built on a prominent sample of Luther Vandross and Cheryl Lynn’s 1982 rendition of a love song Marvin Gaye and Tammi Terrell recorded in the late 1960s — an intricate piece of lineage-making meant to bridge multiple generations.
Olivia Dean performs.
(Myung J. Chun / Los Angeles Times)
“First and foremost, let’s give a shout-out to the late, great Luther Vandross,” the producer Sounwave said as he, Lamar, SZA and the song’s other creators accepted their award at Crypto.com Arena. (Before they made it onstage, Cher misread the card identifying “Luther” as record of the year and said that Vandross himself had won.) Lamar added, “This is what music is about,” and expressed his gratitude for being allowed “the privilege” to use Vandross’ music as long as he and SZA promised the singer’s estate not to curse on their record.
You can hear a similar reverence for those who came before in Olivia Dean, the 26-year-old British singer named best new artist on the strength of her hit “The Art of Loving” LP, which looks back to the gleaming pop-soul of Diana Ross and Whitney Houston.
Even Bad Bunny, the Puerto Rican rapper and singer who became a superstar at the bleeding edge of reggaeton and Latin trap, achieved his Grammy breakthrough with something of a throwback move: “Debí Tirar Más Fotos” is an exactingly arranged tribute to his native island, with elements of Puerto Rican folk styles such as bomba and plena and more hand-played instrumentation than he utilized for 2022’s sleek “Un Verano Sin Ti,” which scored a Grammy nomination for album of the year but lost to “Harry’s House” by Harry Styles (who, as it happens, presented the album prize Sunday).
Part of Bad Bunny’s success this year can be attributed to the fact that he’s a far bigger celebrity than he was three years ago; indeed, his Grammy triumph impressively sets up the halftime performance he’ll give this coming weekend at Super Bowl LX. But not unlike Beyoncé’s rootsy “Cowboy Carter,” which finally brought her a win for album of the year in 2025 after a number of outrage-inducing defeats, “Debí Tirar Más Fotos” is also primo Grammy bait: a work steeped in tradition from a natural innovator.
SZA backstage.
(Allen J. Schaben / Los Angeles Times)
For years, the Grammys’ rearview gaze used to bum me out — and, to be honest, as lovely as Eilish’s “Wildflower” is, her song of the year win with the tender acoustic ballad felt like a failure of imagination among voters I wish had recognized the hurtling exuberance of “Golden,” from Netflix’s “KPop Demon Hunters.” (“Golden” did take the prize for song written for visual media, which made it the first K-pop tune to win a Grammy.)
Yet something about Sunday’s ceremony made it hard to get too worked up about all the historicizing. Perhaps it was how plainly yet passionately many artists used their time onstage to speak about the issues pressing on us right now. “Before I say thanks to God, I’m gonna say: ICE out,” Bad Bunny told the crowd as he accepted an award for música urbana album. “We’re not savage, we’re not animals, we’re not aliens. We are humans, and we are Americans.”
Lady Gaga on the red carpet.
(Christina House/Los Angeles Times)
Eilish said, “No one is illegal on stolen land.” Dean pointed out that she’s the granddaughter of an immigrant and that “those people deserve to be celebrated.”
I was also moved by how personal so much of the music felt — a cry of imperfection like Lola Young’s “Messy,” for instance, which she performed by herself on piano and which won pop solo performance in an upset over the likes of Lady Gaga and Sabrina Carpenter. “I don’t know what I’m gonna say because I don’t have any speech prepared,” she yelled into the microphone as she received her trophy. “Obviously, I don’t — it’s messy, do you know what I mean?”
Weirdly for a show with yesterday so heavily on its mind, a tribute to the late R&B trailblazers Roberta Flack and D’Angelo was a disappointment, with Lauryn Hill as bandleader moving way too quickly (in way too short an allotted time) through songs that require real space to unfurl.
That’s what Justin Bieber had for the evening’s most striking performance: a slow and radically stripped-down rendition of his song “Yukon” that he sang wearing only boxer shorts and socks, accompanying himself with a scratchy electric guitar riff he fed through a looping station.
“Yukon” is from Bieber’s impressive “Swag” album, which he released last year after a lengthy stretch in the pop-star wilderness; it’s an LP, kind of like “Messy,” about learning to forgive yourself for your flaws, and here he sang “Yukon” like a guy who’d figured out — maybe a guy figuring out — how to build a life outside the punishing expectations of celebrity. The music had the past in it, of course, but didn’t feel constrained by it.
Bad Bunny’s “Débi Tirar Más Fotos” was named album of the year at Sunday night’s 68th Grammy Awards — the first time a Spanish-language LP has won the Recording Academy’s most prestigious prize.
Bunny delivered the speech primarily in Spanish.
“I want to dedicate this award to all the people who had to leave their homeland, their country, to follow their dreams,” he said as the audience rose to its feet.
“Puerto Rico, believe me when I say that we are so much bigger than 100 by 35 and there is nothing that exists that we can’t accomplish,” he said in Spanish. “Thank God, thank you to the academy, thank you to all the people who have believed in me throughout my whole career. To all the people who worked on this album. Thank you, mami, for giving birth to me in Puerto Rico. I love you.”
“For all the people who have lost a loved one and even then have had to continue moving forward and continue with so much strength, this award is for you all.”
Intricately arranged with the sounds of the singer and rapper’s native Puerto Rico, “Débi Tirar Más Fotos” was released to rave reviews in January 2025 and quickly reached No. 1 on the Billboard 200 album chart. Last summer, Bad Bunny supported the project with a 30-date concert residency at San Juan’s José Miguel Agrelot Coliseum; he followed that with the announcement of a world tour that avoided the United States, in part, he told I-D magazine, because of his concern that immigration agents might turn up at shows.
Prior to Sunday’s win, “Débi Tirar Más Fotos” — the title translates in English to “I Should Have Taken More Photos” — was named album of the year at November’s Latin Grammy Awards. Next weekend, Bad Bunny (whose real name is Benito Antonio Martínez Ocasio) will headline the halftime show at Super Bowl LX in Santa Clara.
He won earlier in the night for música urbana album and global music performance.
The other LPs nominated for album of the year were Justin Bieber’s “Swag,” Sabrina Carpenter’s “Man’s Best Friend,” Clipse’s “Let God Sort Em Out,” Lady Gaga’s “Mayhem,” Kendrick Lamar’s “GNX,” Leon Thomas’ “Mutt” and Tyler, the Creator’s “Chromakopia.”
In 2025, Beyoncé took the prize with “Cowboy Carter.”
The Rams won’t be the only no-shows at the Super Bowl. President Trump will be conspicuous in his absence from the biggest annual, single-day sporting event in the United States.
“It’s just too far away,” Trump told the New York Post. “I would go if, you know, it was a little bit shorter.”
Or perhaps not so far to his left?
Super Bowl LX will be played Feb. 8 at Levi’s Stadium in Santa Clara, part of the San Francisco Bay Area that Trump has so often reviled.
The teams — the New England Patriots and the Seattle Seahawks — hail from deeply entrenched blue states. Massachusetts and Washington have voted for the Democratic presidential candidate in every election since 1988.
Trump also has expressed disgust over the musical performers at this year’s game: Bad Bunny and Green Day, both unabashed critics of the current administration. Bad Bunny will play the halftime show while Green Day will perform ahead of the kickoff.
“I’m anti-them,” Trump said. “I think it’s a terrible choice. All it does is sow hatred. Terrible.”
Ahead of a tour last fall to promote his most recent album, Bad Bunny (whose real name is Benito Antonio Martinez Ocasio) announced he would skip the United States because he was afraid of ICE raids at his concerts. The Puerto Rican superstar — who has nearly 84 million monthly listeners on Spotify — explained why he made an exception for the Super Bowl.
“What I’m feeling goes beyond myself,” he said in a statement. “It’s for those who came before me and ran countless yards so I could come in and score a touchdown. This is for my people, my culture and our history.”
Green Day, an American pop-punk band of almost 40 years, has since Trump’s first term swapped a line in the lyrics of the 2004 hit “American Idiot” from “I’m not part of a redneck agenda” to “I’m not part of the MAGA agenda.”
Turning Point USA, the conservative non-profit founded by the late Charlie Kirk, announced in October that it would stage its own counterprogramming to the Super Bowl and stream it on conservative outlets. The “All American Halftime Show” is billed as “Celebrating Faith, Family, & Freedom.” As of Monday, musical artists had not been announced.
Trump became the first sitting president to attend a Super Bowl a year ago when he received a muted, mixed reaction of cheers and boos in New Orleans. But this year, the 5½-hour flight from Washington D.C. to the Bay Area apparently is too long for the president, who in January alone has flown to Switzerland, Detroit and Palm Beach.
The NFL has resisted pressure to replace Bad Bunny with a performer more politically palatable to Trump.
“There’s a lot of people right now who don’t like Bad Bunny being in the Super Bowl halftime show,” NFL chief marketing officer Tim Ellis said at a conference in October. “Well, not everyone has to like everything we do. Bad Bunny is f—ing awesome.”
Not everyone has to like the teams that earned Super Bowl berths and the states they call home, either. And not everyone has to approve of the venue. That includes the President, who made it clear that if he decides to watch, he’ll do so from a distance.
