Last Sunday, rapper Kendrick Lamar took the stage for the Super Bowl halftime show and gave a 13-minute performance that was so important for our time, especially during Black History Month.
Kendrick Lamar is a 37-year-old rapper from Compton, California. Lamar is well known in the music world for his 22 Grammy wins and for winning a Pulitzer Prize for music. His album DAMN. was one of his most popular with multiple different tracks that topped the charts.Â
Recently, Lamar has been in the news for multiple other reasons. In the past year, there has been a lot of online drama between him and rapper Drake. Drake and Kendrick’s “rap beef” started when Kendrick was featured in a song with Future and Metro Boomin called “Like That” on March 22, 2024. Lamar had a verse where he made a diss towards Drake and artist J. Cole. This started a back-and-forth between Drake and Kendrick with three diss songs dropped by Drake and four dropped by Kendrick, including his five-time Grammy-winning song “Not Like Us.” “Not Like Us” created turbulence around the world because of the lyrics in the song and the music video that he dropped as well which not only was subliminal for Drake but for our state in America, which brings me to the halftime show he performed last Sunday. The performance had appearances by artist SZA, producer Mustard, Serena Williams, and actor Samuel L. Jackson.
Here’s the breakdown of why that performance was so culturally significant for our time and for Black America.
Samuel L Jackson as Uncle Sam
Actor Samuel L. Jackson is one of the best male actors of our time. He has had so many important roles, including his role in the movie Django Unchained, where he played the role of a slave telling an important story. In the halftime show, Jackson was dressed as Uncle Sam, a constant figure in American propaganda. His role in the show was the commentary throughout it, and he constantly said things that were against and challenged Lamar and what he was doing during the show. Jackson said things like “Too loud, too reckless, too ghetto,” and “Scorekeeper deduct one life.” These things were crucial in the story that Lamar was trying to tell because they commented on how American media and society treat things that are loud or create a type of turbulence, like protests or this halftime show. One of the other things Jackson said was, “Mr. Lamar, do you really know how to play the game?” referring to the Great American Game that he spoke about at the beginning of the show.
The Great American Game
Football is widely known as the great American game, but Lamar took this opportunity to play on that and comment on America and its politics as well. The show began with lights in the stands that read “Start Here” with an arrow pointing to where Lamar was and ended with the words Game Over. The show also included Xs, Os, and other symbols that represented buttons on a game control. The Great American Game could also be seen as a commentary on life and navigating it being a game, especially for the African American community and all the hardships and challenges that come with life in America as a Black person.
His Comments
Lamar made comments in between his rapping and that told more of the story he was trying to tell. Towards the beginning of the performance, Lamar said, “The revolution is about to be televised. You picked the right time but the wrong guy.” This was seen as a call-out to both our current sitting President, Donald Trump, who was in attendance at the game, and to the current state of America and where it is heading.
“40 acres and a mule; this is bigger than the music. They tried to rig the game, but you can’t fake influence.” This was one of the most important things that Lamar said in my opinion. Post War Black people who were formerly enslaved were promised 40 acres and a mule as a form of reparations but it never happened because the policy was overturned by President Andrew Jackson. Lamar said that this was bigger than the music because it is. Everything he did and said was much bigger than rap beef or a performance but about the injustice that still goes on today.
The Color Scheme
All of the dancers wore either red, white, or blue. Everyone that was shown, including the surprise cameos, were also in the color scheme with Kendrick wearing blue and SZA wearing all red. This was to help tell the story of the American Game and the revolution in America.
A split American flag was also formed during Lamar’s performance of Humble. The dancers never came together to actually form the flag but instead danced with it split perfectly down the middle. This commented on the current state of America socially and politically.
Drake Diss
“You know they like to sue.” Drake had recently tried to sue Lamar for defamation for the song “Not Like Us” where Lamar basically called him a pedophile. Because of this, many people were speculating if Lamar would even perform the song on such a big stage because of the repercussions it could have on the lawsuit, and of course, Kendrick did it anyway. Lamar also wore a big “a” chain, which many fans speculated was a diss toward Drake for the lyric “A-Minor” in the song, which has been constantly played and sung by the world.
Kendrick Lamar took this platform and this time sent a message not only about his issues with Drake but also about his issues with the American system. He broke the record for the most-watched halftime show in history with 133.5 million viewers and was the first solo rapper ever to headline the halftime show. For the people who did not understand the halftime show and did not understand the importance of his message, I encourage you to rewatch it because he truly made history.