As the Internet has seemingly latched onto, yes, I’m a huge Bad Bunny fan. And, yes, I went to his concert on August 16 in Puerto Rico, dressed in a floral shirt and a bucket hat, with my wife and her sister and friend. It. Was. Epic.
I wanted to go to the residency because, having seen Bad Bunny, or “Benito,” as I call him (we’re on a first-name basis now; he calls me “Jon Jamón”), perform four or five times—at Coachella, in Miami, in Brooklyn, and on Saturday Night Live—I knew he would absolutely bring it, and the crowd would as well.
At the concert, we were put at “la casita”—a stage made to look like a humble Puerto Rican home doubling as a V.I.P. section—and it was like nothing I’ve ever experienced before. I’ve had the good fortune to be backstage and even onstage at my fair share of shows, but this was truly like being part of the crowd. At no time did you have the sense that you were “onstage.” You just felt a part of it. It’s hard to explain clearly, but it was deeply memorable.
Not that anyone cares what my Spotify Wrapped looks like, but there are a lot of Bad Bunny songs in there. My favorite ones are “Tití Me Preguntó” and “Debí Tirar Más Fotos”—mostly because of how they were received by the crowd at the Puerto Rico concert. Everyone was singing along and in the best mood and purely “in the moment” of being there.
I call him “Benito.” He calls me “Jon Jamón.”
All of this is to say that I can’t wait for Bad Bunny’s halftime show, and I think everyone else should be just as thrilled. Looking past the ridiculous and performative “outrage” coming from the right about having the No. 1 streamed artist in the world—who just won Album of the Year at the Grammys—perform at the Super Bowl, I will simply say that Benito deserves to be there. He deserves to be there in the same way Kendrick did last year and the Dre-Snoop West Coast medley deserved to celebrate Los Angeles a few years back.
Bad Bunny is writing the music that is speaking to our times. Not in a reflexive way, but in the way that art should speak to us: by motivating us to follow our better angels and avoid the contrarian, divisive, mean-spirited rhetoric that currently seems to be dominant in the culture. In a few words, Bad Bunny has led with positivity and love. Those feelings permeate the rhythms of his music and the pure joy of his lyrics. You don’t have to speak Spanish to feel that vibe.
Benito has been the soundtrack to the last few years of my life. His music has been a beacon of light in these tremendously ominous times. I hope his light shines for many, many years and helps us all find the joy that he so effortlessly exudes.
Gracias, Benito! Gracias, P.R.! “Debi Tirar Mas Fotos” … pero la Internet tira bastante para todos! [Direct translation: I should’ve taken more pictures, but the Internet does enough of that for us.]
P.S.: Please excuse my Spanish spelling. My keyboard isn’t set up for accents.
Jon Hamm is an Emmy Award–winning actor and producer