Since Kendrick Lamar was announced as the Super Bowl LIX Halftime Show’s headliner last September, music fans have been abuzz with excitement, wondering how the Pulitzer-Prize winner would handle the historic gig — the first for a solo rapper.
Fresh off a summer-long beef with Drake that birthed the Grammy-winning diss track “Not Like Us,” Lamar had the opportunity to put on the pettiest Halftime Show in the telecast’s history. By January, he had also been caught up in a defamation lawsuit over “Not Like Us,” making it unclear whether he’d even be able to perform the song. (He did.) There was also the big question that looms over any televised Lamar performance: what will the socially-conscious rapper have to say, if anything, about the current political climate?
In the past, Lamar has taken opportunities on big stages to address hot-button issues and telegraph his own political anxieties. He’s invoked police brutality at the BET Awards, and mass incarceration — not to mention his general disillusionment with America — at the Grammys. Out of all the hip-hop acts that could have graced the Halftime Show stage, it seemed like Lamar had been chosen for his combination of showmanship and ability to generate conversation. That said, Donald Trump’s recent re-election — and shocking attendance at the Super Bowl; a first for a sitting president — seemed like the ideal backdrop for Lamar’s signature provocative imagery and the political side of his catalog, like his 2015 song “Alright,” which was an anthem of the Black Lives Matter movement. And yet, Lamar had a different objective for the night.
After the opening song, “GNX (Teaser),” Lamar gave the audience a frank memo of what not to expect over the next 12 minutes. “The revolution ‘bout to be televised,” Lamar said while the music cut out. “You picked the right time but the wrong guy.”
It’s not exactly a new sentiment if you’ve been paying attention to Lamar’s more recent musical output. On his fifth album, Mr. Morale and The Big Steppers, released in 2022, Lamar tackled society’s ills and his own position as a socially conscious rapper, but had more questions and contradictions than answers. Meanwhile, it was hard to find the same political angst that drove 2015’s To Pimp A Butterfly on his latest album, GNX, a radio-friendly victory lap following his highly publicized beef with Drake. On the 2021 Baby Keem song, “Family Ties,” he made his reservations about being seen as a political symbol clear. “I been ducking the social gimmicks,” he rapped. “I been ducking the overnight activists / I’m not a trending topic.”
Likewise, during Super Bowl LIX, Lamar avoided songs like “Alright” and “The Blacker The Berry.” He skipped the sort of anti-establishment messaging that got him lambasted by Fox News anchors in the past. Instead, he opted mostly for songs off of GNX, which he’ll tour around the country in April, including “squabble up,” “peekaboo,” “tv off,” and “luther,” featuring his future tourmate SZA. The pair also performed their 2018 collaboration “All the Stars” from the Black Panther soundtrack. Inevitably, he performed both of his most popular diss tracks from last summer, “euphoria” and, after much teasing, “Not Like Us.” The crowd sang along as he came to the song’s most famous and quotable line — “tryna strike a chord and it’s probably a minorrrr.” Lamar also sported a very visible lower-cased “a” necklace. And Serena Williams, the subject of many a Drake lyric, danced on the field during the performance. In short, the evening’s biggest act of daring was aimed at Drake’s lawyers, not some larger injustice.
Still, the Halftime Show did gesture towards politics. During the opening number, numerous backup dancers emerged from a Buick GNX wearing solid red, white and blue hoodies. The show featured actor Samuel L. Jackson dressed as “Uncle Sam” in a patriotic suit and top hat. However, it didn’t seem like Lamar was trying to articulate a rebuke of our current government or even any sort of message about the climate. Rather, we watched the rapper play, as Jackson called it, “the American game.” As Lamar maneuvered around the stage, designed as a game of tic-tac-toe, it felt like watching him navigate the social responsibility placed upon him as a Black entertainer and his own desires to sell out a little bit.
He also demonstrated what happens when someone in his position falls outside of the lines of respectability and is seen by the wrong audience. Likewise, Jackson showed up several times throughout the medley, acting as both an emcee and Lamar’s corporate conscience. The songs he played, while less explicitly political than some in his repertoire, weren’t exactly network television-friendly or, better yet, fit for an NFL audience. After Lamar finished performing “squabble up,” Jackson derided the song as “too loud, too reckless, too ghetto.”
“Mr. Lamar, do you really know how to play the game?” Jackson asked. “Then you have got to tighten up!” Lamar then moved into a performance of “HUMBLE,” his first radio hit following the To Pimp A Butterfly. His dancers, moving like robots, quickly assembled to create an American flag.
The internet quickly underscored Lamar’s dilemma. Despite the relatively muted political commentary, right-wing pundits, like Eric Daughtery of Florida’s Voice and former representative Matt Gaetz, ran to X to decry the performance as containing some sort of extremist, pro-Black agenda. Alt-right commentator Jack Posobiec called Lamar’s performance the “DEI Halftime Show.” Presumably, more offensive soundbites and comments from angry, white MAGA dudes will roll in throughout the week.
Lamar’s Halftime Show may not have been the direct middle finger to Trump that his fans may have expected or wanted, but he did offer something other artists of his caliber would maybe refrain from doing on such a mainstream stage — examine his own place in American culture. Lamar proved that he can still be an agitator without standing on a cop car or performing in chains. Even at his most palatable, his art will ultimately never be safe.
