“Before I say thanks to God, I’m gonna say: ICE out!” proclaimed Bad Bunny on February 1, while accepting the Grammy award for best urban music album. Bad Bunny, one of the most well-known and awarded U.S. musicians today, repeated his pro-immigrant message a week later at the Super Bowl halftime show, without making an explicit anti-ICE statement, as in the Grammys. This time the musician delivered his message with a performance seen by millions as a pro-worker celebration of an America encompassing everyone from Alaska and Canada to the U.S. mainland, the Caribbean, and the entire central and southern parts of the continent. A feature of the halftime show — with more than 135 million people tuned in — were explicit expressions of Puerto Rican pride.

Feb. 13, 2026

“Before I say thanks to God, I’m gonna say: ICE out!” proclaimed trap and reggaeton artist Bad Bunny on February 1, while accepting the Grammy award for best urban music album.

The crowd inside the show, which took place in Los Angeles, overwhelmingly responded with cheers.

“We’re not savage, we’re not animals, we’re not aliens,” Bad Bunny added. “We are humans and we are Americans.”

The Grammy ceremony and Bad Bunny’s anti-ICE statement came in the context of the Trump administration’s brutal crackdown against immigrant workers, with hundreds of thousands of people arrested and deported in the last year, often violently. This anti-working-class assault has generated mass protests — particularly in Minnesota, which has become ground zero for the ICE dragnet. That’s where last month federal agents murdered volunteer observers Renee Good and Alex Pretti, both U.S. citizens, in cold blood.

Bad Bunny, one of the most well-known and awarded U.S. musicians today, repeated his pro-immigrant message a week later at the Super Bowl halftime show, without making an explicit political statement as he did in the Grammys.

  • Proprietary_Blend@lemmy.world
    214·
    1 day ago

    How much did he get paid for that wasted Superbowl opportunity? Where was “ICE Out!” then?

    Also, halftime shows are stupid anymore. All those sports fans paying ridiculous money to see some extremely labeled performer dance in some weeds from 1/4 mile away. WTF.

    • Notyou@sopuli.xyz
      3·
      16 hours ago

      Not to respond to most of your post, but I read recently about how much artists get paid for their Superbowl performance…

      Drum roll…

      Not much. They get paid in “exposure”. The performance cost is covered, but the actual artist gets paid around maybe $1-2k.

  • FlashMobOfOne@lemmy.world
    518·
    1 day ago

    Who cares?

    The guy had a golden opportunity to reach 150,000,000 people during the Super Bowl and he decided to pretend there’s unity or some bullshit.

    He could have stood on that stage, refused to perform, and talked about all the people being killed by ICE here in America. He could have pulled a Muhammad Ali and used his celebrity in a real, tangible way to oppose the fascists.

    But nah. Too much money to be made.

    This is the same symbolic crap that liberals love and accomplishes nothing.

      • FlashMobOfOne@lemmy.world
        27·
        1 day ago

        As I said, symbolic shit that liberals love and accomplishes nothing.

        But it’s not a logical equivalent because CK didn’t have nearly the opportunity here that Bad Bunny squandered.

        • ByteJunk@lemmy.world
          3·
          17 hours ago

          How about this, dipshit. Show us the videos of you standing up and making use of the opportunities you made for yourself to fight the good fight.

          Because if all you do is spit venom from your sofa because you can’t drag yourself up without a crane, the do the world a favour and shut the fuck up.