There are very few artists who could sway tens of thousands of people into swarming Tottenham Hotspur Stadium in the tail-end of Britain’s hottest weekend on record. Bad Bunny is certainly one of them.
The 32-year-old Puerto Rican singer (real name Benito Antonio Martínez Ocasio) is smack-bang in the middle of the biggest year of his career to date. He won the Grammy for Album of the Year, along with a host of other prizes for his 2025 album Debí Tirar Mas Fotos, headlined a historic Super Bowl halftime show watched by 128 million people, and even managed to draw the ire of Donald Trump (the US president later dubbed the unifying show "absolutely terrible, one of the worst, EVER!”).
Bad Bunny’s world tour, which has now landed in London on its European leg after visiting Latin America, pointedly skipped the US entirely, in part due to fears that his shows could be targeted by immigration officials. “There was the issue of – like, f*****g ICE could be outside [my concert],” he told i-D last year, adding he was “very concerned” about the possibility of opportunist arrests.
The singer (who addressed the ICE arrests in his Grammy acceptance speech: “We’re not savages, we’re not animals, we’re not aliens – we’re humans”) opted instead to do a 31-show residency at the El Coliseo de Puerto Rico, which generated millions for its economy. “If we fight, we have to do it with love,” he has preached.
At his second night in London, love is everywhere. Flags from Puerto Rico, Argentina, Colombia, Mexico and Cuba pepper the straw “pava” hat-wearing audience, many members of which dance along while on video calls to their families. Ocasio – in a sharp double breasted cream suit and aviators – stands proud, speaking only Spanish, surveying the solidarity he’s created, before launching into DTMF hits “La MuDANZA”, “BAILE INoLVIDABLE” and “NUEVAYoL” alongside a swelling 16-person salsa band, who (aided by a 10-sting Spanish guitar) also deliver a rousing cover of Oasis’s “Wonderwall”.
Hips soon swivel to the show’s second act, situated inside Bad Bunny’s famous casita (”little house), one of the artist’s many protests against gentrification, which has controversially become something of a VIP lounge of late. Partying on the porch tonight is Salma Hayek, following in the footsteps of Novak Djokovic who dropped in the previous night. But as soon as Bad Bunny re-emerges, blowing the roof off with rave-ready hits including 2022’s “Tití Me Preguntó” and 2020’s “Si Veo a Tu Mamá”, it’s clear that everyone from the A-listers to the stewards (who can’t help but fist bump from the stairwells) is invited to this heady house party.
Whoop-worthy surprises keep coming when the festivities return to the main stage. Damon Albarn, of Blur and Gorillaz fame (who Bad Bunny collaborated with on 2023 track “Tormenta”), takes a seat at the piano for his band’s 2001 hit “Clint Eastwood”, with Bad Bunny– now wearing a furry hat and bedazzled gloves – jumping in for the rap verses.
Throughout the three-hour salsa, bomba, Latin trap and reggaeton-infused show, it’s uplifting to witness just how celebratory Bad Bunny’s performance is: there’s no pandering to his Anglophone audience. But he’s generous with them, too: he takes time to shake the hand of every person at the barricade. He has an extraordinary way of bringing people together.
“It doesn’t matter, whatever situation you’re going through,” he tells the crowd. “Please, don’t forget to enjoy the simple things in life, even though they can seem small, they can be giants.” Bad Bunny, himself now a giant, has proven himself against the odds with flair, joy, love – and a really, really, great party.
