Commotion with Elamin Abdelmahmoud

Bad Bunny's historic Super Bowl Halftime show, and Aquakultre's album and why it's important to know your history

Feb 9, 2026
Radheyan Simonpillai talks with El Jones, a Halifax poet and professor who brings African Nova Scotian history and literary context; Reanna Cruz, a music critic who dissects performance and cultural politics; and Rosa Clemente, an organizer and Afro-Latinx political commentator. They debate Bad Bunny’s Spanish-language Super Bowl halftime performance, its political symbolism and production, and unpack Aquakultre’s history-rich album 1783.
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INSIGHT

Visual Storytelling Centers Black Puerto Rican History

  • Bad Bunny's Super Bowl set used dense visual storytelling to assert Puerto Rican and pan-American identity.
  • Rosa Clemente highlights the show's opening images of enslaved Africans as a deliberate reminder of Black presence in the Americas.
INSIGHT

Reframing "America" As A Pan-American Identity

  • Bad Bunny repurposed the phrase "God bless America" to include all the Americas and emphasized unity with a marked football.
  • Rosa Clemente called that finale political and deliberately challenging to isolationist, right-wing narratives.
ANECDOTE

Community Blocked ICE At Puerto Rico Shows

  • Rosa Clemente described activists forming a human chain to keep ICE away from Bad Bunny's Puerto Rico residency shows.
  • She says local community organizers, not police, protected the event and prevented ICE interference.
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