Super Bowl Halftime Show

I saw a friend post on Facebook this morning that said (I’m summarizing): “I got on Facebook and most of my friends didn’t like the Super Bowl halftime show, Trump got a great applause and Taylor Swift was booed. I still have no idea who won the game.”

Super Bowl LIX

Unless you are an Eagles fan, this game was awful. But I’m not here to talk about the dirty birds dominating the Kansas City Chiefs 22-40 in Super Bowl LIX (59). I fully blame the New York Giants for this. They should fire the entire front office and coaching staff for letting Saquon Barkley go to the Eagles. It makes me sick just thinking about it. Barkley is a human highlight reel. As the NFL Offensive Player of the Year, he gave the Giants the biggest bleeeep you on his birthday by winning a Super Bowl the first year he played for a different team. Without Barkley, the Eagles are not in the Super Bowl.

Love or Hate

When it comes to President Trump and Taylor Swift, you either loved them or hate them. (Individually or together.) No sitting president has ever attended a Super Bowl. After multiple assassination attempts on his life and a mass killing on Bourbon Street New Year’s Eve/Day, I’m shocked the President would attend the Super Bowl in New Orleans. But honestly, you never know what Trump will do so maybe it’s not that surprising. And the crowd loved it as they cheered when he was shown on the jumbotron during the National Anthem. Now, when my girl Taylor was shown on the jumbotron, the boos were unnecessary. Her reaction, was better than mine. She laughed it off, I would have smiled and flipped you off.

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Halftime Show

If you think this was the worst halftime show, did you not see Maroon 5 in Atlanta in 2019? Travis Scott and Big Boi saved that show. Woof! There are so many mixed feelings about Kendrick Lamar’s Super Bowl Halftime show. If you didn’t ‘get it’, well, then it’s clear it was not meant for you. I was in an Uproar because Lil Wayne was not the performer at the Super Bowl in New Orleans, his hometown. However, Lil Wayne could not have delivered the message that Kendrick Lamar did during the halftime show. (And yes, Lil Wayne is in my top five rappers.)

Art

Art is sometimes boring and hard to understand. To be honest, there are so many layers to the creativity, the culture, the history, and the Drake feud that I don’t feel comfortable trying to explain it all because it’s deep and detailed. I know there are so many more elements to this performance that I am uneducated on. I saw two messages being delivered through art. One message about Kendrick’s feud with Drake and the other message about where we are in the culture.

Kendrick Lamar is a Pulitzer Prize winner. In 2017, Kendrick won the Pulitzer Prize in music for his Album, DAMN., a virtuosic song collection unified by its vernacular authenticity and rhythmic dynamism that offers affecting vignettes capturing the complexity of modern African-American life. Kendrick Lamar has an artistic gift for storytelling. Most art wasn’t made for your living room; it was made to be displayed in a museum.

Drake

Drake and Kendrick started off cool in 2011.They were featured on each other’s albums. Fast forward to October 2023. Drake is besties with J. Cole (another rapper) who called himself, Drake, and Kendrick the big three in rap today. Cole wasn’t wrong for what he said, but Kendrick knew HE was different. Kendrick didn’t want any part of that league. Drake responds and then responds again. Think Muhammad Ali vs George Foreman in the Rumble in the Jungle fight. Kendrick was Ali with the rope-a-dope tactic. (If you don’t know this fight, this blog post is not for you.)

Fast forward again to April 2024 and the next few weeks are an absolute bloodbath of venom and musical art, round for round. Until, Kendrick drops Not Like Us. This song is the greatest diss track of all time. A flat-out haymaker! Drake’s only response after a failed comeback track was filing a lawsuit for having hurt feelings- or whatever the legal term is for that.

The Culture

The culture is telling you how you are perceived when you have an entire stadium yelling “a minor” (a line indicating that Drake likes young girls). Kendrick didn’t just win the battle, he won the war. To add more subtle insults to Drake, the GOAT, Serena Williams is dancing on stage to the diss track. Serena dated Drake in 2011 and then dissed her in a song. Like, it was really disrespectful to Serena and her husband. She was also criticized for doing the same dance move (Crip walk) in 2012 when she won the gold at the Olympics. Kendrick’s message was to celebrate the culture while throwing another jab at Drake. Samuel L. Jackson was representing American society rules; however, Kendrick was playing by his own culture rules. The red, white, and blue colors were a visual of both unity and contradiction.

The squid games undertones and remote controller symbols were pieces of the system (media) that has everyone fighting instead of uniting. MUUSSSTARRRRD (Mustard is a producer) had his moment, and SZA showed us you don’t have to show skin to show off your voice. The performance ended with ‘GAME OVER’ in lights. Kendrick Lamar won. How much you loved or hated the Super Bowl halftime show is most likely a reflection of your culture.

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