Politics
Super Bowl Halftime Show Director Reveals Bad Bunny Showcased Real Business Owners
Bad Bunny is dominating the conversation right now thanks to his much-celebrated Super Bowl set, which served as a celebration of Puerto Rico and its people.
During this year’s Super Bowl Halftime Show on Sunday night, the Grammy-winning singer and rapper shared the stage with around 330 people – and it’s now been revealed that these included real-life vendors and icons of the Puerto Rican and Latin American communities.
These included Los Angeles Villa’s Tacos, as well as a real-life piragua (a Puerto Rican shaved ice dessert) vendor, a nail technician and a barber.
Creative director Harriet Cuddeford recently spoke to Variety about how the use of real vendors came about – and why the musician wanted to celebrate “normal people” during his powerful show.
“This was to show how much he values his community, to celebrate normal people on the world’s biggest stage, especially people who are of importance in Latino culture. He’s a very authentic person, Benito, and it’s about just being authentic and very real and very human,” Cuddeford explained.
As part of his performance, Bad Bunny briefly stopped by a replica of Toñita’s, a Caribbean Social Club, which is one of the last remaining clubs of its kind in Williamsburg, Brooklyn.
The set perfectly mimicked the real-life New York spot, which Bad Bunny frequently visits, even including the real owner.
“We faithfully recreated this iconic, very important for the culture, Puerto Rican bar in Brooklyn,” Harriet revealed.
“And then we flew Toñita out to be part of the performance. And you saw him do the shot with her at the point in the song when he sings about doing a shot with Toñita.”
“I was emotional, but I was not nervous,” Toñita told The New York Times about her moment at the Super Bowl.
“The show was marvelous and exceptional. We are proud of having participated in such a huge moment,” the Brooklyn business owner added.
Another memorable moment during his show saw Bad Bunny stop at a recreation of L.A.’s Villas Tacos, where he was greeted by the real-life founder Victor Villa.
The restaurant’s owner told Eyewitness News that his business was chosen to join the Super Bowl halftime show because Bad Bunny is a big fan.
“We sold our first taco in the front yard of my grandma’s house in Highland Park more than eight years ago and I feel that every taco along the way brought me here,” Mexican-American Victor wrote on Instagram.
“Today. For this moment! I couldn’t have sold that first taco, if my parents didn’t make the difficult decision to leave their homeland for a better life and immigrate to the US.”
It was also previously revealed that a couple actually tied the knot during Bad Bunny’s performance, after inviting the Puerto Rican singer to their wedding last year.