---

Every year, the Super Bowl comes around, and viewers across the world are treated to one of the best performances of the year.

In 2025, we witnessed the Kendrick Lamar performance. While it was noted for its striking message and highly entertaining delivery, the verdict is still out on whether it deserves the title of “best performance.” Especially after this year’s performance by Mr. Benito Martínez Ocasio, popularly known as Bad Bunny.

Bad Bunny performed at the Super Bowl this past weekend, and we’re going to talk about it. The whole world is talking about it, and for good reason. It was a masterclass in cultural expression.

The performance emphasized deliberate visual storytelling, incorporating layered references to Latin American culture through costume, staging, choreography, and symbolism. It framed cultural identity through intentionality, pride, and contextual depth, rather than the reductive stereotypes commonly seen in the media.

This delivered the sense of oneness we’re seeing communicated throughout social media. The feeling that we were a part of a community.

Watching the Benito Bowl, one could easily draw the similarities between the Puerto Rico references and Nigeria. Both historically and contemporarily.

Starting from our colonial pasts; from the sugarcane fields representing our shared significance of the agricultural sector, to the symbolism of power outages in the electric poles, to the stackable plastic white chairs on the album cover of DeBÍ TiRAR MáS FOToS, makeshift nail salon, barber shop, street vendors, even wedding culture and one of Africa’s greatest values: Family, the performance hit close to home for many Nigerians. Moreso when we zoom out to understand the context in which this event was held, the ICE raids, and the various injustices and violence faced by our people.

With the growing insecurity for Latin Americans in the United States, Bad Bunny would have been well within his rights to make a bold political statement at the Super Bowl performance, calling out ICE for their ongoing terror on American citizens. Yet we witnessed a more wholesome and expository approach - a celebration of love, community, and cultural identity; and we LOVE him for it.

“Because if our movements don’t hold space for kinship—for being in community, for healing, for dancing, for feeling the drumbeat of something deeper—then what exactly are we building?

We don’t just want revolution. We want reclamation of life. We want relationship. We want liberation that knows our names, that sees our spirits, that feeds us in body and in soul. We want kinship and we are worthy of it” (Jamila Bradley, 2025).

Love is a force, whether acknowledged or not. It triggers hope and joy, and at times becomes a window in a dark room; not merely an emotion, but a strategy for survival. A strategy for life.

When we speak about love, we’re referring not only to romantic relationships but to the love that exists in community. The love shared between friends, colleagues, and family. The love that sparks safety and acceptance within us. The Agape, Philia, and Storge love we deemed “not as important to know” about in our social studies classes.

That love is what we’re calling out to you this season. The girlies who celebrate Galentine’s Day know what we’re talking about. That’s a community who knows how to decenter romantic and sexual relationships in favour of platonic ones as a means of not just survival but celebration.

So go out and create spaces to give and receive love. We dare you! build communities fostered in love and togetherness. You’re worthy of it, and you deserve to put it out there. Thank you for reading, and Happy Black History Month.