Joan Jett has spoken out in support of Puerto Rican popstar Bad Bunny, praising the way he used his Super Bowl halftime performance to “discuss issues that are really important”.

Speaking newly on the Music Makes Us podcast hosted by Bikini Kill’s Kathleen Hanna, the rock legend was asked her opinion on how music can help reshape the way we engage with the world, in light of the recent global sociopolitical turmoil.

She responded, “Absolutely. Ask Bad Bunny. Even if he’s not saying something specifically with his lyrics, he’s using this huge platform that he’s been given to discuss issues that are really important to Americans and to more and more Americans as they’re realizing what’s happening — and around the world.”

Here, the musician was referring to Bad Bunny’s Super Bowl show, which saw him perform in all-Spanish for the first time ever in the history of the game. The Trump administration had criticised the performance before it had even taken place; Kristi Noem had also threatened a greater presence of ICE at the celebration.

Despite this intense political backlash, he ended the set with a sign that read “The only thing more powerful than hate is love.”

Reflecting on her own experience of intermingling politics and art, the ‘I Hate Myself for Loving You’ vocalist added, “We just got back from New Zealand, and everybody was asking us, ‘What’s going on in your country?’ So everybody is interested, and I believe that you kind of, as a person with some kind of platform where you can speak to people — I’m not saying you have to go all in the way you would if you were sitting down having a face-to-face conversation.”

Jett is aware of the realities of working in the creative industry, adding, “You can’t utilize your time like that — but I think you can certainly have a few well-thought-out sentences to let people know when what’s going on and whatever it is you wanna say. But saying ‘shut up and sing’ has never really been what musicians or artists do, from way on back.”

As such, Jett is a firm believer that music “really connects and fills an important space, if you allow it, in people’s capacity to deal with all this stuff that we’re dealing with.”

In 2024, Joan Jett and the Blackhearts showed their support for the Democratic Party through a new video for the single ‘If You’re Blue’, which encouraged fans to vote blue at the polls.

She also posited Donald Trump as a threat to the country’s democracy at the time, writing in a statement, “More than ever, we need politicians who can implement massive positive change for our nation. We have come to that point where we’re not just voting for our party or a candidate, but on whether our democracy survives.”