I'm Wesley Morris, and this is Cannonball today.

Benito, Benito.

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, to be explicit about what is being protested,

or that there is even a protest occurring at all in some of this work.

And I think that's why there was so much suspense, anticipation, excitement, fear.

Willie or won't he in the lead up to Bad Bunny's performance?

On the one hand, how could the, maybe the most famous Puerto Rican on Earth, one of the biggest singers, musicians on Earth, not just go there.

On the other hand, it's the Super Bowl,

and this thing is speaking to a huge American audience that claims it's just here to watch them football.

And, you know, they don't want to be told how to feel

about important things.

Well, he did it.

And I think people, some people, are a little confused.

Like, was what he did a protest or not?

So I asked my friend Sasha Weiss to come back on the show so we could think through, I mean, what really did happen?

What did he do?

And then we're going to talk about protest music more broadly.

The like, punch you in the face kind of songs.

And then, you know, the more subtle ones.

But I'm not going to be subtle now because here comes the cannonball.

...