‘He’s going to incorporate love.’ What KC Bad Bunny fans expect at Super Bowl show
AI-generated summary reviewed by our newsroom.
- Kansas City fans expect danceable music, guests and a cultural tribute.
- Local events, businesses and watch parties show strong community excitement.
- Fans say language won’t matter; they expect an emotional, unifying message.
Brenda Cortes began listening to Bad Bunny long before he won Album of the Year at last Sunday’s Grammys.
Early in his career, she was in an intimate crowd in March 2018 when he performed at Kansas City’s Midland Theatre. He rapped in Spanish, casually dressed like any other young guy on the streets of San Juan.
She realized a dream last summer when she flew to Puerto Rico with a friend to see the singer, now a global superstar, during his historic “No Me Quiero Ir de Aquí” (”I Don’t Want to Leave Here”) residency in San Juan. Those 31 sold-out concerts pumped hundreds of millions of dollars into his homeland’s economy, a massive tourism success.
Cortes stood for the entire show.
“My feet were killing me,” she laughed. “I did not sit down. I was screaming the whole time, we were jumping up and down. It was crazy.”
She still has the wearable tech concertgoers were given that flashed lights synched to the music, a prop they could take home. She’s going to put it in a scrapbook some day.
To celebrate the halftime show, the full-time bilingual content creator planned two small Bad Bunny-themed events for her fellow fans in KC this weekend. Both sold out in less than 48 hours.
The Puerto Rican superstar has “lots of fans” in Kansas City, said Cortes, a Waldo resident who has more than 33,000 followers on Instagram, where she’s known as @bbcortess.
“I’m sure we have as many Bad Bunny fans as we do Taylor Swift,” Cortes said. “I feel like he’s the Taylor Swift of the Latino community ... a lot of us here in Kansas City probably don’t care about the Seahawks and Patriots, but the fans are coming out because they went to see Benito.”
Local fans of Benito Antonio Martínez Ocasio — stage name Bad Bunny — have been excited for the “Benito Bowl” since he was announced as the halftime headliner in late September.
During a news conference at the Super Bowl on Thursday in California, the singer divulged no clues about what he has planned.
But Kansas City fans expect this: music that will make you get off the sofa and dance, special guests and an emotional tribute to his culture that just might make you want to be Puerto Rican.
And, they say, you don’t have to know Spanish to enjoy it, something the six-time Grammy winner himself said at the Thursday presser.
His fans here are not focused on his anti-ICE words at Sunday’s Grammys or the culture-wars drama surrounding the upcoming halftime show. The latter has led to an alternative halftime show, sponsored by the conservative group Turning Point USA. Its headliner is Kid Rock, a five-time Grammy nominee who has never won.
Around Kansas City, a few business have caught Bad Bunny fever. This week Dolce Bakery in Prairie Village introduced “Benito Bowl” cookies. The Granada Theater in downtown Lawrence is hosting the “Perreo Bowl: Bad Bunny Superbowl Halftime Pre-Party at The Granada” on Saturday night.
On Sunday, Dos Lokos in Westport is hosting a “Benito Bowl Watch Party.”
“For me, I can’t even understand what he’s saying all the time. But I absolutely love it because I genuinely feel that Latin music just brings you such a good feeling. It’s joy,” said Amanda Peña of Olathe, a project coordinator at Black & Veatch.
“All of us have definitely been to a Mexican restaurant. All of us have definitely been to a fiesta of some sort. That music is happy music. And I really, really associate all of that with him and I also really enjoy him as a person.
“Seeing him on ‘Saturday Night Live’ the several times he’s been on there; he was in ‘Happy Gilmore 2.’ I think he’s silly. I think he’s smart. I think he’s sexy and I think that he is utilizing all of those, plus his platform, to showcase passion, support his people in Puerto Rico and Latins everywhere and just to bring us great music.”
Benito fans come in all ages
Seeing Bad Bunny perform when he brought his “Most Wanted Tour” to T-Mobile Center in March 2024 turned Katie Ramos into a devoted follower.
“He was very engaging with the crowd. I didn’t know what he was saying for the majority of the concert, but I still had a great time,” said Ramos, a content creator (@katiebops1 on TikTok) in Overland Park who earned a following filming Taylor Swift arrivals at Chiefs games.
The crowd at T-Mobile crowd ran the gamut from high-schoolers to Medicare cardholders, though Ramos said most fans were in their 20s and 30s.
Bad Bunny’s fans point to the Super Bowl teaser from Apple Music that hyped the breadth of his appeal, so strong that he snatched the crown of Spotify’s No. 1 most-streamed artist of 2025 from Swift, with nearly 20 billion streams.
“The whole T-Mobile was completely full and everyone was just hyping him up,” said Ramos. “And the coolest thing about that concert was his stage moves.
“The whole time the stage is slowly moving and breaking into parts ... and eventually it comes up into a bridge, so he’s moving the whole time. He even rode in on a horse at one point.
“I’m really interested to see what he’s going to be doing with the Super Bowl ... because that moving stage is probably one of the coolest set-ups that I’ve ever seen in a concert live.”
This won’t be his first time on a Super Bowl stage. He was a special guest when Jennifer Lopez and Shakira co-headlined halftime at Super Bowl LIV in 2020. That year Lopez paid homage to her own Puerto Rican roots — at one point she walked out wrapped in a Puerto Rican flag cape.
Peña was raised by her Mexican grandparents in small-town Kansas but never learned Spanish from them. Bad Bunny’s music, she said, connects her to her own culture, a feeling shared by other fans.
“My grandma loved listening to Spanish music. I was really big into church … at the time and would go to both English Mass and sometimes we would also go to Spanish Mass. And I always really resonated with Spanish-speaking music even though I couldn’t ever understand,” said Peña, a content creator who goes by @Boldandmexikc on TikTok and Instagram.
“I always felt things through music. It either brings you back, nostalgia, it reminds you of a time, it reminds you of a person, it reminds you of a season. So that’s one thing with Bad Bunny, he’s bringing so many things back to me. It’s comfort. It reminds me of home.”
Cortes started crying almost from the first note she heard him sing in Puerto Rico last summer. Her parents are from Mexico, but like Peña they connect emotionally to his songs.
“I feel like it’s how he makes people feel through his music, especially as he’s evolved,” said Cortes. “Because when he first started I just liked his songs, I just kinda of vibed with it. I liked the rap. Spanish rap wasn’t as known back then ... so it was something different and that’s why I liked it when I started following him.
“But I feel like as he’s evolved, I love how he makes you feel, that you’re a part of his culture. Me being Mexican, it’s very different from other Latin cultures and even when I was at his concert in person I felt like I was Puerto Rican.
“He’s just so good at making you feel like you are welcome and you are invited to experience his culture. And I think that is so beautiful the way he portrays his island and where he is from. It makes you feel so passionate and like, ‘Oh my God, I want to represent my culture the way he represents his.’
“Especially his most recent album. It was very close to his traditional roots, like the salsas he mixed in there. And I think he just made you think, ‘I want to be Puerto Rican.’ It’s just such a vibe.”
People who choose to not watch the show, Cortes said, “are going to miss out on a lot. I feel like that stage is going to be used for a lot when it comes to speaking out.
“It’s not just going to be his music, it’s going to be a whole message. And that’s what I think people are going to be missing out on, a message for everything that’s been happening right now because it’s been very intense in the United States.
“He showcases how we all can come together and how we can just live with each other. We’re all people at the end of the day and I don’t think skin color, culture or race should matter. And I think he’s going to do a good job of showcasing that on stage ... I know I’m going to cry.”
Peña concurred.
“I think that he’s going to incorporate people. I think he’s going to incorporate love. I think he’s going to use his platform to showcase all the different types of people that are up there (on stage) ... that’s what I think you’re going to expect but give it that Super Bowl extravagance,” Peña said.
“I don’t even think that you’re going to be able to concentrate on what he’s saying and that he’s speaking Spanish. I think you’re going to be looking at the show. And I think you’re going to be looking at this just amazing performer. He’s going down in history, regardless.”
Cortes considered going to a watch party, but she’ll probably stay home.
“I feel like I kinda just want to take in the moment and really just focus, really pay attention,” she said. “I feel like I’m not going to get that if I go somewhere. But I don’t know. If I change my mind I’ll change my mind. But I’m kind of envisioning just being at home and watching it more just one-on-one.”
And she’ll probably be standing the whole time.
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