Podcast Summary: "Bad Bunny and the Art of Protest"

Cannonball with Wesley Morris
The New York Times
Date: February 12, 2026

Overview

In this episode of Cannonball, Wesley Morris is joined by writer and cultural critic Sasha Weiss to explore the boundaries and meanings of protest in music, centering on Bad Bunny’s groundbreaking 2026 Super Bowl halftime performance. The discussion expands into the evolution of protest music, comparing direct and subtle forms—from Bruce Springsteen’s "Streets of Minneapolis" to Nina Simone’s existential defiance. The episode weaves personal and cultural insight, examining how protest can manifest as both confrontation and invitation.

Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Bad Bunny’s Super Bowl Performance: Protest or Party?

• The Setting and Anticipation

  • Morris sets the stage: "Even before Bad Bunny took the stage at the Super Bowl, I was thinking a lot about what a protest is doing in this moment. Protest art. And I think a lot of it has been afraid to take things on..." (01:00)
  • There was suspense over whether Bad Bunny would engage in overt protest given the massive, mainstream Super Bowl stage.

• Overtness & Subtlety in Artistic Protest

  • Weiss: "It was an act of protest, but in some ways a totally overt one and in some ways actually a really subtle one...protest in the form of invitation into my worldview..." (02:58)
  • Morris and Weiss agree the performance held depth—while referencing Puerto Rican history, it also invited America to witness community, joy, and ancestry.

• Historical Symbolism: Sugar Cane Fields

  • Morris: "I loved the shrinking of the field to just some sugar cane. Yes. A extremely powerful historical stretch..." (03:29)
  • Weiss: "He's definitely evoking that historical violence that is still very much with us." (04:11)

• Community, Celebration, and Generational Exchange

  • The stage transforms from a plantation reference to a lively, intergenerational neighborhood scene—bodega, EBT sign, food carts.
  • Weiss: "It's a party with a lot of specificity...I really thought about musical theater...we are in a mood. And that mood is fellowship." (04:44)
  • Morris: "To be among and inside this culture...By invitation." (05:16)

• Pointed Reference: Sesame Street & Shared Spaces

  • Morris draws a parallel to Sesame Street: "A kind of directness that is really important for how messages get put across on that show...part of the way that we learn is by a kind of direct transfer...of personhood." (05:38)

• Counter-Protest and Inclusion

  • Morris reframes the act as "counter-protest": "The fact of it is protest, but I think it actually is counter protest...we are living under a government that is protesting a reality...and this performance, to me, was...a counter protest." (07:01)

• Invitation and Intimacy

  • Weiss on Bad Bunny's personal invitation: "He whispers, I love that...he’s introducing himself to us...He doesn't call himself Bad Bunny in this moment...You are being invited into Benito's house." (08:09–08:50)
  • Morris: "It doesn't have to be alienating that you don't know every word. Just let the production tell you..." (10:34)

2. Darker Undercurrents and Overt Protest

• The Shift during "El Apagón"

  • Morris describes the visual transition: "Strobe lights...dancers...dressed the same as the sugarcane guys...up on these utility poles, climbing, getting shocked..." (12:48)
  • Weiss: "It's a song about the blackout in Puerto Rico...he is talking about the neglect and the mismanagement of the post–Hurricane Maria world..." (12:32)

• Climactic Ending: Urgency and Vulnerability

  • Observing Bad Bunny’s departure, Morris notes: "He bumps into the camera almost...ripping out his earpiece...It just creates this urgency. Like, he is being censored..." (15:00)
  • Weiss: "Where the edges of his very carefully constructed world suddenly bleed out into the outside world...It's chilling for not having been kind of admitted into the main event." (15:44)

3. The Modern State of Protest Songs

• Why So Few Protest Songs?

  • Morris and Weiss lament the scarcity of direct protest music today.
  • Weiss: "Where are the protest songs?" (18:40)

• Bruce Springsteen’s "Streets of Minneapolis"

  • Springsteen joins with reflections on urgency: "Nuance is wonderful, but sometimes you have to kick them in the teeth." (19:34)
  • Lyrics are analyzed for their immediacy—"Through the winter's ice and cold / Down Nicolette Avenue..."
  • Weiss: "Protest songs are keepers of the record...works of journalism...a marking for the future." (21:36)
  • Morris: "A protest song should be willing to break your nose, like, punch me in the face..." (25:39)

• Directness vs. Universality

  • Morris and Weiss compare "Streets of Minneapolis" (specific, direct) and Stevie Wonder’s "It's Wrong (Apartheid)" (universal, moral indictment).
  • Morris: "Stevie Wonder just doing a song that's so punch you in the nose. It's called It's Wrong. Apartheid..." (27:56)
  • "Apartheid is wrong. And then he's got these Isi Josha background singers, like accompanying him. So it's a call and response." (29:05)

• Protest Songs as Tools and Emotional Anchors

  • Weiss: "They can prepare you for the long struggle...for how you endure." (31:26)
  • Morris: "How you get over...how you get from one side to the other side." (32:09)

4. Protest as Personal: Nina Simone’s "Feeling Good"

• Existential, Interior Protest

  • Weiss: "To me, this is an existential protest song...She's bringing a new reality into being within herself, while also...acknowledging...the undertow of the harsh reality that she lives with...She vanquishes it through the course of the song." (35:03)
  • Simone’s performance is parsed as a journey from inner doubt to triumph.

• Addressing the Self vs. the State

  • Morris: "This song is me talking to me. And you can hear, dear listener, what you want..." (36:16)
  • Weiss draws a line back to Bad Bunny—how party or pleasure itself can be protest, especially against dehumanizing forces.

Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On protest art at the Super Bowl:
  "Was what he did a protest or not?...What really did happen? What did he do?" — Wesley Morris (01:30)
• On protest through invitation:
  "It was kind of protest in the form of invitation into my worldview..." — Sasha Weiss (02:58)
• On historical symbolism:
  "People, your sugar starts in a field. And for a long time, people were not paid money to harvest it..." — Wesley Morris (03:57)
• On counter-protest:
  "This performance, to me, was a protest. A counter protest to that protest." — Wesley Morris (07:01)
• On real risk and danger:
  "In these final seconds, I’m going to exit with a kind of urgency that suggests that there had been a risk..." — Wesley Morris (15:20)
• On directness in protest songs:
  "A protest song should be willing to break your nose, like, punch me in the face. Do it." — Wesley Morris (25:39)
• On protest as self-address:
  "This song is me talking to me. And you can hear, dear listener, what you want." — Wesley Morris (36:16)
• On pleasure as protest:
  "There’s something kind of, like, irrefutable and irreducible about the pleasure that he is taking and offering. And that is protest too." — Sasha Weiss (37:49)

Timestamps for Important Segments

• 00:44 — Episode starts; Wesley Morris introduces theme: protest in art and Bad Bunny at the Super Bowl.
• 02:42 — Morris and Weiss debate if Bad Bunny's performance was a protest.
• 04:44–06:46 — Discussion of neighborhood party, intergenerational exchange, community.
• 07:01 — Framing Bad Bunny’s performance as a counter-protest.
• 12:04–13:32 — The move from joy to darkness; referencing "El Apagón," Puerto Rican blackout, and visual storytelling.
• 15:00 — Final moments of urgency; Bad Bunny’s risky exit.
• 18:42 — "Where are the protest songs?" and the Springsteen intervention.
• 19:34–22:31 — Listening and dissecting "Streets of Minneapolis;" direct protest songwriting.
• 27:56–29:17 — Examining Stevie Wonder’s "It’s Wrong (Apartheid)."
• 32:30–36:16 — Nina Simone’s "Feeling Good" and protest as internal, existential, and personal.

Tone & Style

• Conversational & Analytical: Personal reflections are interwoven with sharp cultural analysis.
• Warm and Inclusive: Both Morris and Weiss emphasize the value of invitation over confrontation in protest—whether in music or in social change.
• Curious and Reflective: The hosts often pause to question themselves, re-examine assumptions, and highlight nuance and complexity.

Conclusion

This insightful episode uses Bad Bunny’s Super Bowl halftime show as a lens to examine protest in music—past and present, explicit and implicit, communal and individual. Morris and Weiss situate protest not only in pointed lyricism and overt political challenge, but in the celebratory, the everyday, and in joy itself. The episode challenges listeners to reconsider what protest can look and sound like in American culture, and whose stories are told on its biggest stages.