Caribbean presence on the Super Bowl halftime stage did not begin in this moment. It has a history. AYEE — Debí tirar más fotos. I wish I took more fotos.

Caribbean presence on the Super Bowl halftime stage did not begin in this moment. It has a history.

AYEE — Debí tirar más fotos.
I wish I took more fotos.

That’s the Bad Bunny anthem Super Bowl 2026 has the whole world lit with — decoding, applauding, talking… talking… and talking some more. Every portal buzzing. Every opinion loud. Every take racing to be first.

And then there’s the noise that always follows.

While Bad Bunny is out here lighting up the world — decoding, applause, conversation layered on conversation — DJT, in the middle of his extremely politically overstimulated life, finds the time to call the halftime un-American. That word again. Like it hasn’t been stretched, bent, and weaponized a thousand times before.

As if there was a contest, the TPUSA halftime protest didn’t even get his full attention. Imagine that. DJT was watching Bad Bunny. A defector to his tribe? (jk.)

And someone like me — who does the storying, the sharing — I like to slow it down. I like to give thoughts breadth.

Because the big reveal for me in the Bad Bunny Super Bowl performance lives beyond the clamor of voices.

Before Bad Bunny’s Caribbean-inspired Super Bowl halftime theatre and showmanship, there is precedence here.

A close family share — straight off a Twitter feed — invited me to look again. And there it was. Super Bowl 1979. Halftime. Caribbean highlight. Front and center. Artistes like the Barbados Merrymen. The performance was officially billed as “Carnival: A Salute to the Caribbean.”

And here — yes — this is where we drop the vintage links.
Because receipts matter.

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Sources / Vintage Footage

Official Event Title & Context
Super Bowl XIII (1979) Halftime Show
Carnival: A Salute to the Caribbean
Location: Miami Orange Bowl
Date: January 21, 1979

Wikipedia — Super Bowl XIII (Halftime Show listing)
Confirms the halftime title “Carnival: A Salute to the Caribbean” and the Caribbean-themed presentation
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Super_Bowl_XIII

YouTube — Super Bowl XIII Halftime Spectacular: Carnival (1979)
Broadcast-era footage capturing the Caribbean carnival presentation
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rqECxxSBbY4

YouTube — The Merrymen of Barbados at Super Bowl XIII Halftime
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vkvYsEuxAAE

These archival clips document the 1979 halftime presentation officially billed as “Carnival: A Salute to the Caribbean,” featuring Caribbean artistes — including the Barbados Merrymen — and centering carnival rhythm, movement, and collective cultural expression on America’s largest televised stage.

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That matters to me. Because long before halftime became a pop-star spectacle, it made room for collective Caribbean joy — rhythm, movement, color, procession — without translation, without apology. That came first. Everything else came later.

Debí tirar más fotos.
I should have taken more photos.

And that’s how memory works. You don’t realize what you witnessed until you’re asked to remember it.

Now let me speak as myself — Caribbean-born, Caribbean-minded.

Before the Super Bowl halftime became this oversized, corporate-polished event, Black households were not always captive audiences. We had options. We had culture.

Whether folks remember In Living Color, Living Single, or that whole unmistakable Black-sitcom moment, the truth is simple: a significant audience turned away from halftime.

Not out of protest.
Out of preference.

And when that happened, the league noticed. Sponsors noticed. Ratings noticed. Corporate America did what it always does when money starts slipping — it recalibrated.

That’s when halftime stopped being filler and became a value-add.

Enter Michael Jackson.

Not only because of artistry — though the artistry was undeniable — but because Michael represented something advertisers understand fluently: reach. Global. Cross-generational. Cross-racial. Captive.

That halftime wasn’t just a performance.
It was a market correction on overdrive.

From that moment on, halftime became about holding eyeballs, protecting sponsor dollars, ensuring no other network could pull attention away again.

1979 — when Caribbean culture didn’t need a single superstar to justify its presence.
2026 — when Benito stands center field, unapologetic in Spanish, grounded in family, land, and memory.

In 1979, the Caribbean spoke through drums, bodies, procession.
Now it speaks through language.

People keep saying they didn’t understand the words. But understanding has never been the entry fee for belonging in America — even when some pretend otherwise.

The 1979 audience didn’t need lyrics to understand carnival.
They understood joy.
They understood movement.
They understood celebration as civic presence.

And let’s be clear about what people rushed to misread.

The child on stage was not an ICE reenactment. That story was invented. What we witnessed was Benito in conversation with his younger self — memory speaking to becoming.

The wedding wasn’t spectacle. It was family grounding.
The cane fields weren’t aesthetic. They were history — labor, land, colonization named instead of erased.

And Puerto Rico was not framed as an orphan.
It was framed as America — as America can be.

So when some voices cry un-American, what they’re really saying is unfamiliar. And unfamiliar has always been confused with threat in this country.

America paused for the Caribbean in 1979.
America listened again decades later.

Debí tirar más fotos.
I should have taken more photos.