Bad Bunny’s expected Super Bowl halftime performance in Spanish has sparked a new round of language-learning among fans who want to understand the lyrics in real time, as the Puerto Rican singer’s cultural reach collides with U.S. political debate. The surge shows up in online videos, posts and messages, where viewers document their study habits and, in some cases, focus on Puerto Rican slang they say is central to how the songs land.
The momentum traces in part to Bad Bunny’s earlier public comments. In October, the singer—whose birth name is Benito Antonio Martínez Ocasio—kicked off the 51st season of “Saturday Night Live,” expressing pride in Spanish, and then told viewers in English: “If you didn’t understand what I just said, you have four months to learn!” The remark helped fuel interest in translating and interpreting his music, according to fans who say they started preparing immediately.
Niklaus Miller, 29, said he has been working to learn Bad Bunny’s lyrics since the SNL appearance. He described turning the challenge into a personal project, telling reporters, “I am delusional enough to be like ‘this would be easy. I could pick it up pretty quickly,’” while noting that the Puerto Rican dialect can make pronunciation harder. Miller said the songs are fast and that if he has not worked on a song for days, he can forget how to say it, adding: “It’s fun but then stressful because I am a Type-A person, so that’s been hard, honestly,” before saying, “I’m firing on all cylinders.”
Miller also said he receives messages from people who watch his videos with their parents, and that they tell him the effort makes them feel “seen and appreciated.” While he has not learned Bad Bunny’s entire discography, Miller said he has learned portions of six songs he expects could appear during the halftime show, including “Tití Me Preguntó,” “DtMF” and “Baile Inolvidable.”
Another fan effort is centered on content creation. O’Neil Thomas, 28, a New York City actor and content creator, started learning Bad Bunny’s catalog the day after the singer was announced as the halftime act. Thomas said he was “just so excited because he wasn’t an artist that I expected,” and he linked that surprise to the larger U.S. moment, saying he believed Bad Bunny was “the perfect person to headline such a humongous stage.” Thomas added that the response to his TikTok videos—featuring him learning tracks such as “NUEVAYoL” and others—has been “really positive,” and he said many Puerto Rican people reached out to tell him they were proud someone outside the community was trying to engage with their culture.
Academics said the Super Bowl effect fits a longer trend. Vanessa Díaz, an associate professor of Chicano and Latino studies at Loyola Marymount University, said “People were already starting to make the effort with learning Spanish as a result of their interest in Latin music,” and that “The Super Bowl itself is an additional push for a trend that was already happening.” Díaz co-authored a book about Bad Bunny’s role in Puerto Rican resistance, “P FKN R: How Bad Bunny Became the Global Voice of Puerto Rican Resistance,” and said the past decade’s rise of Latin music has helped drive interest in learning Spanish among non-Spanish speakers.
Díaz said Bad Bunny’s messaging—reflected in lyrics, videos and performances—amplifies that interest. She also pointed to how widespread Spanish is in U.S. daily life, noting that Spanish is the most spoken language at home behind English in the U.S., “except in three states,” and adding that over 13% of residents age 5 and older speak it, citing U.S. Census data.
The attention around the halftime show has also sharpened existing political divisions. The reporting said Bad Bunny’s booking was divisive from the start, with Trump calling the selection “ridiculous” and conservatives describing it as anti-American, despite Puerto Ricans being U.S. citizens by birth. The story said a conservative group, Turning Point USA, is putting on an alternative “All-American Halftime Show,” with a lineup led by Kid Rock.
Those reactions come amid increased targeting of Latinos and Spanish-speaking communities in immigration-related actions by the Trump administration, the reporting said. It described executive actions that expanded who is eligible for deportation and said routine immigration hearings have turned into “deportation traps” for migrants. In that context, Bad Bunny has positioned the halftime stage as a platform to show his “music, heritage and global influence,” while the NFL and Apple Music face what the story described as a balancing act: delivering a spectacle that celebrates diversity without spooking advertisers.
The story also tied the cultural moment to Bad Bunny’s Grammy wins and his public use of politically charged language. After his album “Debí Tirar Más Fotos” became the first Spanish-language album to win album of the year, the singer did not shy away from federal immigration enforcement at the awards, telling audiences in English after winning his first Grammy for música urbana album, “Before I say thanks to God, I’m going to say ICE out,” and adding: “We’re not savage, we’re not animals, we’re not aliens. We are humans and we are Americans.” The reporting said his remarks have fed both admiration and anger online, including anger from some conservatives who have vilified him for speaking out against Trump’s anti-immigrant policies.
Bad Bunny’s visibility has also drawn support from some scholars who said Spanish has often faced stigma in U.S. history. Petra Rivera-Rideau, an associate professor of American studies at Wellesley College and co-author of “P FKN R,” said there is a long history in the U.S. of Spanish being criminalized. Rivera-Rideau’s view, along with Díaz’s, frames the language-learning rush not just as fandom but as a broader public conversation about representation.
Díaz said she does not think the performance will necessarily change how Latinos are perceived in the U.S., but she said it is likely to create an “interesting conversation” depending on how people grapple with the “magnitude of having someone like Bad Bunny on the stage.” She linked that visibility to a moment she described as heightened targeting of Latinos, migrants and Spanish speakers—adding that the scale of that attention makes Bad Bunny’s platform particularly consequential.