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Happy Friday. Happy Super Bowl Weekend. HAPPY BAD BUNNY WEEKEND.

I spent all week talking about Bad Bunny, on my show and with CNN, and USA Today among other outlets. And I gotta say, I’ve been loving it. I’m so excited for his halftime show performance this weekend. Not for the show itself. I usually find halftime shows lacking. In large part because they’re overstuffed. A litany of songs is crammed into a 12-minute set, in ways that always feel frenetic. There are too many mashups and surprise featured guests and pyrotechnics and the like, which means that for most of these halftime shows, you rarely get to sink your teeth into an entire song or *moment* before you’re punched in the face with another, bigger one. And then before you know it, it’s all over. (Except for Prince's halftime show. It was perfect. There’ll never be a greater one. Trust me. You should watch it right now.)

And so with Bad Bunny, I won’t be watching for the music. And all of my conversations about him this week have been about ideas bigger than just his songs. I’ve been acknowledging the new pop culture reality Bad Bunny represents. While American news media has made much of Donald Trump’s and the conservative political media infrastructure's handwringing over a musician who sometimes wears dresses and always sings in Spanish playing America’s biggest show, I’m more concerned with what Bad Bunny on that stage says about the world *outside* of America.

This week, I chatted with Dr. Nate Rodriguez. He teaches a college course on Bad Bunny at San Diego State University, and he’s also writing a book about the rapper. He says the most interesting part of Bad Bunny’s rise, and his halftime show, is how much it all symbolizes “the new geography of US pop culture.” He’s a total inverse of the Latin Explosion I lived through more than 20 years ago, when performers like Marc Anthony and Shakira, among others, stopped singing in Spanish and started singing in English to cultivate an American audience. Now, Bad Bunny sings in Spanish, with an eye towards a truly international fanbase, while American English speakers catch up.

The NFL understands this. Bad Bunny on their stage is part of the league’s international ambitions. They want to be as big and as global as FIFA, as the World Cup. They’re even pushing for all NFL teams to play at least one international game a season in the future. They understand, just like Bad Bunny does, that the pie is bigger than America.

I’ll be watching the halftime show with that in mind, and seeing the most American of pastimes through a lens in which America isn’t the only one in the room. In The New York Times this week, former Rolling Stone editor-in-chief Noah Shachtman said it even more plainly: “English is no longer culture’s lingua franca, or at least not the only one. A third of American pop music fans listen to music in Spanish, according to the Luminate data analytics firm; nearly two-thirds listen to artists from other countries. And the younger and more engaged those fans are, the more international their tastes are likely to be.”

All this to say, I’ll be watching America’s biggest concert this weekend knowing that it’s not just for Americans. I am not bothered by this. I am excited and intrigued.

Will you be watching? What will you be looking for? And what’s your favorite halftime show of all time?

Also, while you’re here, can I ask you to complete this little survey? We’re trying to make my show as good as possible for y’all! SO we want your insights as we keep growing. Thank you in advance!

– Sam

By the way, come hang with me at KCRW's Valentines & Vinyl at Zebulon on February 12th. I'll be hosting the night of music and love alongside KCRW DJ Novena Carmel. This party is members-only! So if, you're not a member, become one, then RSVP. Currently a member? RSVP now, and I'll see you there!

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