Change through music: ‘When the Levee Breaks’

As a child of the 60s and 70s, music shaped my understanding of the world as it does for so many young people stepping into adulthood today. Watching Bad Bunny stand alone at midfield during the Super Bowl, hearing the roar as his first notes hit, and then witnessing the backlash the next day, I felt something familiar to the time of my youth. The styles have changed, but the cultural divide between young and old, between left and right, around music remains the same. The rancor about who gets to speak, who gets to belong, and whose voices are considered “American” remains remarkably constant.

The parallels to the 1980s are striking. President Ronald Reagan, in a 1983 speech lamenting what he saw as the “decay of values” among my generation, warned that “there are those who portray America as a land of racism, violence, and despair. That is not the America we know.” In his radio commentaries, he went further, arguing that “some of the so‑called protest songs seem more intent on tearing down America than lifting it up.” Fast‑forward to today, and the pattern repeats itself. Before the Super Bowl even began, President Trump announced he would boycott the game and blasted the NFL’s choice of performers as “a terrible choice,” setting the tone for the wave of outrage that followed Bad Bunny’s appearance.