Sports and music. I didn’t think much about sports and music since I am not a sports fan and I didn’t think much about sports at all. But Bad Bunny’s appearance at the Super Bowl perked me up – this is cross-border music on a gigantic scale.
It did not come out of the blue. As far back as the 1960’s, Latin/Mexican rock stars like Richie Valens, Rosie Hamlin Mendez, Sam the Sham, and Freddy Fender had national radio hits. But they had to anglicize their names and Latin heritage first to get on the radio. Despite the fact that Bad Bunny is using an English childhood nickname, there was no attempt to disguise his Puerto Rican heritage. It is a feature, not a bug. The Spanish language was just frosting on the cake, despite the screaming and yelling that an American institution like football should only be represented by Americans singing in English.
Which brings me to the news this week that the three-sister rock trio from Monterrey, Mexico, The Warning, will perform the halftime show in the NFL’s kickoff game in Mexico when the Vikings play the 49ers. This followed the news that The Warning hit #1 on the Billboard US Mainstream Rock Airplay chart.
Whoa – another Latin band at an NFL halftime! Is the NFL using Latin music to advance its global game? Maybe, but actually I think The Warning is the one doing the using, as Bad Bunny did at the Super Bowl.
Bad Bunny’s Super Bowl performance said oud and clear that Spanish and Latino visibility belongs inside U.S. mass culture. The Warning’s NFL appearance is saying we are Mexican, we are global, and if the NFL wants to go global, they need us – and it is also good for Mexico.
The Warning is using the NFL to broaden the idea of what Mexican music is today, blowing away stereotypes of guys in sombreros strumming guitars and singing about cartels. The Villarreal sisters are a Mexican band whose core music is English-language hard rock – really, really good hard rock. As I said, their latest release, “Kerosene,” is the first Mexican song to hit #1 on the US Billboard Mainstream Rock Airplay chart. It is also the first time women made #1 on the chart. To do that, you have to be really, really good.
The fact that it is an all-female band s is another statement. The Warning are three women succeeding in a rock world of male bands, male guitar heroes, male gatekeepers, and a male football audience. Their rise gives added force to the NFL booking: it is not simply a Mexican act on a major platform, but a female rock band taking possession of a stage usually associated with superstar pop acts and overwhelmingly male sports culture. The NFL could have booked Fuerza Regida or Banda MS de Sergio Lizárraga–you know, guys with big hats and boots and guitars and accordions; instead, they realized that three sisters from Monterrey who have broken into the top of the US market – which the popular bandas and nortenos have not done despite the much larger online followings – can give the NFL the authenticity they need for its opening game in Mexico.
The NFL’s Latin strategy will have to rely on more than halftime acts. But the acts it books can help it a lot – or harm it. And its more-women-in-the-stands strategy will go beyond female entertainers (or even Taylor Swift and her husband). It will be judged by whether or not it can sell football tickets in a futbal culture. But in the US, Bad Bunny showed that Spanish can command the Super Bowl’s central stage without apology; I think The Warning will show that Mexican women in rock can embody Mexico at the global culture forefront, and US institutions like the NFL are welcome to tag along.
I like where this is going. But I’m still not a sports fan.
Patrick O’Heffernan
Photo: The Warning” INSTAGRAM
