How do Bad Bunny and the Super Bowl reveal the law behind culture, power and identity?

David Lopez

Founder of the Civil Rights, Migration and Workplace Law Initiative; Distinguished Professor of Practice

David Lopez is a Distinguished Professor of Practice and founder of the Civil Rights, Migration and Workplace Law Initiative at ASU Law. He is co-Dean Emeritus at Rutgers Law School, a former EEOC general counsel and a nationally recognized civil rights leader.

Bad Bunny just won the Grammy for Album of the Year, the second Latin artist to win the top award, other than Carlos Santana, and is about to headline the Super Bowl halftime show. That combination alone makes this a cultural moment. But as we explore in the two-part ASU Law podcast Derechos y Esperanza: Bad Bunny, the Super Bowl and the Law, it’s also a legal one. When I talk with students and colleagues about this moment, I keep coming back to the same point: culture often surfaces legal questions more clearly than a casebook ever could and provides a different frame of reference on these questions.

Why is Bad Bunny such a powerful legal and cultural figure right now?

Bad Bunny’s global success forces conversations that legal systems and institutions often avoid. In the podcast, I’m joined by Luis Mendoza, ASU scholar-in-residence, who helps situate reggaeton’s Afro-Caribbean roots — from Jamaica and the Panama Canal Zone to Puerto Rico’s La Perla barrio, New York City and California’s Central Valley. That history matters. It shows how law, migration and culture move together.

What stands out to me is that Bad Bunny never abandons language, place or identity to reach a global audience. He performs in Spanish, challenges gender norms and centers Puerto Rican culture and lived experience in a universally appealing manner. As Diego Alcala Laboy, Albany Law School professor and Ponce native, explains, that visibility raises real questions about who defines “mainstream” and whose culture gets recognized under U.S. legal and political systems.

What does the Super Bowl have to do with law?

The NFL’s decision to feature Bad Bunny sparks controversy that goes far beyond music. In our conversations, Raquel Maldonado Navarro, a San Juan-based lawyer, scholar and activist, connects the backlash to Puerto Rico’s unresolved colonial status and the contradictions of U.S. citizenship. Puerto Ricans are citizens, yet lack voting representation, a reality grounded in constitutional law and Supreme Court precedent.

I see the Super Bowl as a teaching moment. It places these legal contradictions on the biggest stage in American entertainment and invites audiences to confront issues of belonging, language and power that the law has long left unresolved.

How do music, identity and law collide in this moment?

The podcast discussions highlight how law quietly shapes culture, from who gets paid and protected to whose identity is treated as acceptable. Bad Bunny’s music openly addresses gender, masculinity and resistance, themes that intersect with legal systems governing speech, labor and intellectual property.

Alondra Lopez Barrera, ASU Law student and unapologetic Bad Bunny superfan from the California Imperial Valley far from the founding roots of reggaeton,, brings this home when she talks about what it means to finally see this kind of representation on a global stage. Her perspective reminds me why these conversations belong in legal education and why it is important to uplift all voices.

Why should listeners lean into this conversation?

At ASU Law, we study law as it operates in real life, not just in court opinions. These podcast episodes don’t recap doctrine; they invite listeners to hear how legal history, culture and lived experience intersect in real time.

If you’re curious about how the law shows up in music, sports and identity — and what Bad Bunny’s Super Bowl moment says about the United States right now — I encourage you to listen to both episodes below, or wherever you get your podcasts. This is exactly the kind of dialogue that expands how we understand law and its impact, and it’s one I’m excited to keep having with our students and broader community.