On February 9, Super Bowl LIX took place, featuring the Philadelphia Eagles defeating the Kansas City Chiefs 40-22. While the game was derided by many analysts as boring, being far too one-sided for any doubt in the eventual outcome, one segment from the show, however, has sparked a fair amount of online buzz – Kendrick Lamar‘s halftime show.
Kendrick Lamar had a monster 2024, with his disses to Drake and J. Cole and on Metro Boomin and Future‘s ‘Like That’ leading to maybe the most publicised rap feud since Jay-Z vs. Nas in the early 2000s. His diss tracks ‘Euphoria’, ‘6:16 in LA’ and ‘Meet the Grahams’ all received critical acclaim, and ‘Not Like Us’ was the song that defined last year, winning five Grammys. He held a concert titled ‘The Pop Out: Ken & Friends’ on Juneteenth, a victory lap featuring cameos from just about every West Coast artist, past and present. His album GNX, released on November 22, was considered the best rap album of the year by many publications. It’s been a long time since one artist has had the whole game in a chokehold the way Kendrick does.
The specifics of the music selection processes for halftime shows are not known, but what is known is that Jay-Z has been the NFL’s live music strategist since 2019 and has the final say over who performs. Lil Wayne was a strong early contender to headline the show, as New Orleans is his hometown, and he was publicly hopeful for the spot, saying he had his “fingers crossed”. Ultimately, Jay snubbed Wayne, and Lamar was picked instead, causing backlash from many hip-hop personalities such as Nicki Minaj and Birdman. Kendrick himself acknowledged Wayne’s disappointment in ‘wacced out murals’ from GNX. Given Wayne’s recent history of poor performances, such as his clunker at WrestleMania XL last year, choosing Kendrick was almost certainly the right decision.
The performance took place on a stage comprised of four sections, each in the shape of a symbol on the PlayStation controller. Samuel L. Jackson, dressed as “Uncle Sam”, welcomed us to the “great American game”. After performing an unreleased song known as ‘Bodies’, Kendrick, standing on the roof of a Buick, stated that “the revolution about to be televised, you picked the right time but the wrong guy”. Lamar performed ‘Squabble Up’, which Uncle Sam derided as “too ghetto” and told Kendrick to tighten his game up.
While dividing the middle of a group of dancers in the colours of the American flag, Kendrick performed a shortened version of ‘HUMBLE.’, leading into similarly shortened versions of ‘DNA.’, ‘euphoria’ and ‘man at the garden’. After another Uncle Sam interlude, we got ‘peekaboo’ and then a ‘Not Like Us’ tease. Kendrick promised to slow it down, leading to an appearance from SZA and the performance of two of their duets, ‘luther’ and ‘All the Stars’. While Uncle Sam lauded Kendrick for performing “nice” and “calm” songs, he finally launched into ‘Not Like Us’ to the crowd’s delight.
You could tell Kendrick had been waiting for this moment, as he looked straight down the camera with an evil grin while delivering the “say, Drake, I hear you like ’em young” line. He was also wearing a lowercase “a” chain throughout the performance, a reference to the “A minor” bar, which the crowd went crazy for.
Serena Williams, an ex of Drake’s, was seen Crip walking, a moment that quickly went viral and drew comparisons to her 2012 Olympics gold medal victory dance. The final song was ‘tv off’, with Kendrick bringing out “MUSTAAARD” to act as a hype man. The set ended with Kendrick literally ‘turning the TV off” and “GAME OVER” being displayed on the crowd’s light-up wristbands, an extremely cool visual.
I’m torn on the performance. On one hand, it’s structured extremely well and visually impressive, and Kendrick is a very skilled performer who’s a perfect fit for a stage like this. I also respect the decision to commit to relatively new music instead of the greatest hits setlist most artists opt for. But as it ended, I was left thinking to myself, “is this it?”. Is it worthy of Uncle Sam Jackson, the symbolic division of the American flag, “the revolution about to be televised” and a set-long buildup, to play what was already the most popular song of last summer? A song that has already been readily accepted into the mainstream, and whose commentary on public events boils down to “Drake is probably a paedophile”. Is the potential criminal activity of a Canadian rapper really the biggest problem America’s been facing recently?
Maybe my expectations are a little different given how revolutionary and unafraid to speak up Kendrick has been in the past. His 2016 Grammys performance made a statement that couldn’t be ignored, with his backing band locked in jail cells and him walking out as part of a chain gang, to deliver songs like ‘The Blacker the Berry’ and ‘Alright’, which directly related to the contemporary racial zeitgeist of America. This year, he called another rapper a pedophile while performing in front of a crowd including known predator Donald Trump, self-censoring while sponsored by Pepsi and Apple Music. It’s misleading to claim this as some kind of Gil Scott-Heron-esque revolutionary statement when its commercialism was so obviously part of why Kendrick was selected for the show in the first place.
There was a moment of the night which did deserve the “revolutionary” moniker. Zül-Qarnain Nantambu, a member of Lamar’s backing cast, waved a Sudan-Palestine combination flag with “Sudan” and “Gaza” written on it while running around the field, before being tackled and apprehended by security. He was subsequently banned for life from all NFL events. It’s a shame that the person with an actually relevant and important statement didn’t end up on the screen and will most likely be forgotten about before the end of the month.
As much as I disliked certain parts of the show, the NFL’s actions afterwards were especially cowardly. A staffer for the company stated that “a mistake was made”, that they “regretted” asking Lamar to do the show, and that Lil Wayne would have been the correct pick. It’s hard to believe the NFL didn’t anticipate Kendrick performing his biggest hit, and it comes off as a lame attempt for damage control to criticism that wasn’t even that widespread.
The Super Bowl has been no stranger to controversy in the past. 2004’s “Nipplegate”, when Justin Timberlake ripped off a piece of Janet Jackson‘s clothing and exposed one of her breasts, resulted in so much media coverage it was credited for inspiring the invention of YouTube to allow people to access online video content quicker. The 2020 edition, by Shakira and Jennifer Lopez, led to over 1,300 FCC complaints. In comparison, this performance has generated very little backlash. Right-wingers such as Matt Gaetz and Eric Daugherty made ignorant comments claiming the show was some kind of black nationalist movement propped up by the left-wing machine, but other than the usual “anti-woke” suspects, there was very little public objection to the content.
The performance has only bolstered Kendrick’s popularity. GNX returned to number one on the Billboard Hot 200, along with his other albums DAMN. and good kid, m.A.A.d city entering the top 10, making Kendrick the first rapper to have three albums in the top 10 at the same time. ‘Not Like Us’ streams rose by 430 percent. It also negatively impacted the streaming numbers for PARTYNEXTDOOR and Drake’s Valentine’s Day collab release, $ome $exy $ongs 4 U. Additionally, an audio-only version of the show was released onto streaming on the same day of the performance. Inexplicably, it has much worse mixing than the video version.
When people think of legendary halftime shows, their minds will naturally go to Prince in 2007, Diana Ross in 1996 or even the 2022 hip hop edition featuring many rap legends, including Kendrick himself. Will this performance be considered one of the greats in ten years’ time? I don’t think so. What could have been an impactful statement taking America to task for its numerous failings, like it purported to be, instead became another petty shot in a beef already full of them. I never expected to view Kendrick as a product of hype, yet that’s exactly how this performance feels.
