Like lots of immigrants currently—like lots of Individuals currently—Trevor Noah is mulling life after america. Early on this yr’s Grammys, throughout an interlude between speeches and performances, the ceremony’s host requested Dangerous Bunny a query: “If issues hold getting worse in America, can I come reside with you in Puerto Rico?”
Dangerous Bunny grimaced and said the plain: Puerto Rico is in America. Noah tried to shush him, saying, “Don’t inform them that.”
This jokey section set the desk for what turned out to be Dangerous Bunny’s evening, at a time when the nation is roiling in battle over the character of American identification. One week earlier than the 31-year-old singer and rapper Benito Antonio Martínez Ocasio will take the stage on the Tremendous Bowl halftime present, he gained three trophies, together with the evening’s closing prize, Album of the Yr. He was amongst a raft of stars who spoke out on behalf of immigrants and towards ICE from the stage—however his wins, and his phrases, met the second in a novel method. He’s grow to be a political flashpoint due to the place he comes from and what language he speaks, and he’s not pretending in any other case.
His first win of the evening was for Greatest Música Urbana Album—a class established in 2022 to have a good time the ascendent pressure of Spanish-language standard music of which Dangerous Bunny is the undisputed king. The award was introduced by the Cuban-Dominican-American Saturday Evening Reside actor Marcello Hernández and the Colombian pop star Karol G, who riffed concerning the Spanish-language music their mother and father performed round the home once they had been youngsters. The nominees on this yr’s Música Urbana class, Hernández stated, are the musicians he himself will some day mess around the home for his personal youngsters.
“Earlier than I say due to God, I am gonna say, ‘ICE out,”” Dangerous Bunny stated throughout his speech for this award. “We’re not savage. We’re not animals. We’re not aliens. We’re people, and we’re Individuals.” The phrases he used echoed ones that Donald Trump and his followers have used to explain immigrants over the previous yr. Dangerous Bunny underplayed his anger, talking with quiet depth, and ended with a name to keep away from hatred and to battle again with love.
The phrase he had used, “ICE Out,” was inscribed on pins sported by a lot of artists on the Grammys. The 26-year-old British singer Olivia Dean, accepting the award for Greatest New Artist, started her speech by mentioning that she is a granddaughter of an immigrant. She added, “I’m a product of bravery, and I believe these individuals should be celebrated.” When Billie Eilish gained the award for Track of the Yr, she stated, “Nobody is against the law on stolen land”—a typical slogan at anti-ICE protests.
That Dangerous Bunny gained Album of the Yr wasn’t an enormous shock: His 2025 album, I SHOULD TAKE MORE PHOTOSis a industrial smash and a important darling that earned him his fourth yr of being probably the most streamed artist on this planet. What’s extra, that is the primary yr by which all of the members of the voting physique for the Latin Grammys had been invited to vote in the principle Grammys. Even so, Dangerous Bunny didn’t look like he took the victory with no consideration. When the singer Harry Types, presenting the evening’s large award, learn out Dangerous Bunny’s identify, the rapper seemed down and lined his face together with his hand. All night, he’d seemed slick and dapper in a tuxedo with corset-like stitching on the again. Now, the room was cheering, however Dangerous Bunny was silent and tearing up.
The speech he gave was primarily in Spanish. This additionally was no shock, on condition that Dangerous Bunny solely ever performs in his native language. Nevertheless it was additionally a reminder of the historic nature of his win: I SHOULD TAKE MORE PHOTOS is the primary Album of the Yr sung completely in Spanish. “I need to dedicate this award to all of the those that needed to depart their homeland, their nation, to comply with their desires,” he stated within the speech’s transient English portion. Then, in Spanish, he devoted his win to all Latinos and the artists who deserved to be on the stage earlier than him.
Many MAGA-aligned voices have complained about Dangerous Bunny’s Tremendous Bowl reserving by insinuating him as un-American, divisive, and a software of the left’s agenda. To them, his Grammys win will possible simply be taken as one other offense. However the ceremony ended up being a reminder of how facile most of these complaints are. Spanish audio system and immigrants are already embedded in American life, tradition, and music. To reject that actuality is to reject somebody like Dangerous Bunny, who’s, by any definition, an American success story.
