Watching Bad Bunny perform at the Super Bowl didn’t just move me — it cracked something open inside me. I found myself in tears, not because of spectacle or production, but because of recognition. A deep, quiet recognition that only people who come from displacement, migration, and inherited resilience truly understand.
I moved to London at the age of three as a refugee from Kosovo. West London raised me — its streets, its languages, its cultures layered on top of one another like a living archive of survival and joy. Growing up, I always knew that difference didn’t mean division. It meant richness.
My sister, Rita Ora, and I come from Kosovo — a country that, for much of my early life, felt invisible to the world. Rita became the first internationally recognised musician from Kosovo, with 13 UK Top 10s and a career that took her across the globe. But one of the moments that still lives deepest in my heart wasn’t a chart position or a red carpet. It was the 10-year anniversary of Kosovo’s independence.
Rita performed a free show in Kosovo to a reported 300,000 people, organised by the Kosovo government. It was the first event of its kind in the region. For us — and for the people standing there — it wasn’t just a concert. It was a declaration.
We exist.
Our art matters.
We belong on the world stage.
That night felt like collective healing. Joy as resistance. Music as proof of value. Since then, we’ve seen an extraordinary rise in artists from Kosovo and Albanian backgrounds — Dua Lipa, Bebe Rexha, Ava Max, and so many others. A generation no longer asking for permission to be seen.
Growing up in Ladbroke Grove, another culture shaped me profoundly: Jamaican and Caribbean culture. Every year, Notting Hill Carnival wasn’t just an event — it was a communal heartbeat. People of every age, nationality, and background came together to celebrate life, music, food, and movement.
Even my grandfather — who didn’t speak English — would dress up and come with us. He didn’t need language to understand joy.
Carnival taught me something vital: belonging isn’t about where you’re from, but how fully you’re allowed to show up. It also taught me how uniquely British this kind of cultural coexistence is — how lucky I am that my parents chose the UK, because the joy, openness, and connection I experienced here might not have existed elsewhere. So when I watched Bad Bunny perform in his native tongue, unapologetically, on one of the biggest platforms in the world — I felt celebrated.
Not just as someone from Kosovo.
Not just as a Londoner.
But as part of a global community shaped by migration, heritage, and hope.
Around me were friends — Canadian, Jamaican, Indian, Spanish — all of us feeling the same thing at the same time. That rare, overwhelming sense that our stories were being honoured, not diluted.
Since Sunday, I’ve watched the clips again and again. Each time, I feel an intense pride — in myself, my family, my friends, and how far we’ve all come. What moved me most wasn’t just representation, but the energy Bad Bunny brought with him: unity, warmth, defiance without anger, love without conditions.
He used his platform to remind us that joy is powerful. That culture is not something to be tolerated — it’s something to be celebrated.
In a world that often tries to separate us, this performance felt like proof that love still wins over hate.
Thank you, Bad Bunny.
Thank you, NFL.
And thank you to every culture that continues to show us that our differences don’t divide us — they make us the same.
