Tracks 3, 11, 21, and 25 from YHLQMDLG (2020)

Track 17 from Las Que No Iban a Salir (2020)

Some people, predictably and pathetically, are outraged at the idea of a Super Bowl halftime show with lyrics entirely Spanish. If there's any English in Bad Bunny's set, it will probably be the "selfie, say cheese" bit from "Titi Me Pregunto," but I would also love to hear "I don't speak in English" from "Vou 787" or "yes I know, men are trash" from "Telefono Nuevo." I always liked Bad Bunny's early run as a duo with J Balvin and was bummed out when they fell out and Bad Bunny had an odd diss lyric on "Thunder y Lightning" that didn't even make J Balvin sound bac ("I'm always hanging out with the same people, while you're friends with everyone like J Balvin"). Bad Bunny and J Balvin reunited onstage in 2025 (just like that other "oasis" duo!), so I'm hoping Balvin has a cameo in the Super Bowl performance. 

Of course, I'm not fluent in Spanish myself (I regret taking French in high school when there are so many more Spanish speakers in America). So I acknowledge I'm not going to get the full effect of Bad Bunny's lyrics -- I will occasionally look up English translations of his lyrics and appreciate what he's saying (I particularly like the sentiments on ""). But I'm not going to get a lot of the nuance of the rhymes he chooses, the wordplay and musicality of the language that comes with rapping. But I love the lyrics of "La Mudanza," I put that at the top of the playlist initially because I liked the idea of opening with the a cappella intro, and then I read the translation and realized it's also a perfect opener because it's basically an origin story of his parents meeting. I tried to get a bit of every era of his career, although I only took one track from the outtakes compilation Las Que No Iban a Salir (the title literally translates to "the ones that weren't going to be released," which I love). 

Bad Bunny performed "Perfumito Nuevo" with RaiNao on "Saturday Night Live" last year, and a few months later I saw RaiNao in person when I worked at the Hispanic Heritage Awards. She played a saxophone solo at the end of the song she sang there, and was one of the most absurdly hot people I've ever seen, she's an example of one of the newer Puerto Rican artists that he's given a boost in visibility to. He also featured the L.A. indie pop band The Marias on his biggest album a couple years before they had their big pop crossover with "No One Noticed." I like the little experiments with guitar-driven alt-rock songs on Bad Bunny's albums like "Tenemos Que Hablar," I tried to really highlight the sonic variety of his music with this playlist.