Tití me preguntó si tengo mucha’ novia’

“Tití me preguntó si tengo mucha’ novia'” (Auntie asked me if I have many girlfriends) was how this year’s epic Bad Bunny Superbowl halftime performance started and this was by far the lingual highlight of my week! This year’s halftime show was the first one performed almost entirely in Spanish, and with references to Puerto Rican history and culture all over it. It starts with a historical walk-through from the beginning scene with sugar cane workers in pava hats, representing the slave-like conditions Puerto Ricans endured under U.S. corporate rule, to cultural nods like a game of dominoes and a piragua stand, to exploding power poles, indicative of Puerto Rico’s power outages and failing power grid, followed by a scene with Bad Bunny carrying the original Puerto Rican flag with the light blue triangle. The flag was changed to navy blue in 1952 to match the colors of the U.S. flag, and the flag with the darker blue is later shown, a flag that has been used since Puerto Rico became a U.S. commonwealth in 1952.

I was CRYING, all the way to the end where he listed EVERY country in America, from the southern tip of Chile all the way to Canadá! The music has been in my head all week and I’m trying to get a good translation of the Spanish with the Puerto Rican slang in the lyrics, and this Reddit thread with this translation link is the best one I’ve found so far. It seems YouTube’s auto-translate and Genius lyrics don’t really get it right.

Highlights of the show include the intro, “Qué rico es ser latino” (How wonderful it is to be Latino), and a speech given over the violins of the song “Monaco,” “Mi nombre es Benito Antonio Martínez Ocasio, y si hoy estoy aquí en el Super Bowl 60, es porque nunca, nunca dejé de creer en mí. Tú también deberías de creer en ti. Vales más de lo que piensas. Confía en mí.” Billboard translates this to: “My name is Benito Antonio Martínez Ocasio, and if I’m here today at Super Bowl 60, it’s because I never, ever stopped believing in myself. You should also believe in yourself. You’re worth more than you think. Trust me.”

Here is the entire performance. Other performers included participants in a real wedding, Lady Gaga, and Ricky Martin singing in Spanish, something that was discouraged by his former record label, Columbia, back in the day.