The Super Bowl is the event each year that almost everyone is dear to, your conservative uncle loves watching boys get concussions and your liberal gay cousin wants to see someone dance on a football field. More or less, it's something that brings everyone together, but this year, it's much more than football or music. Everyone was excited to see Kendrick Lamar's halftime performance with SZA as a known guest. To some it might have been seen as a controversial duo to perform because they're both provocative Black artists that would rattle the mainly conservative pool of viewers, so many believe they would water themselves down, but people true to themselves would never be anything else. What so many people just took away from the Super Bowl was the amount of celebrities, the president in the audience, and the Eagles winning, but there was so much more in Kendrick's performance. Don't get me wrong, I love watching the Chiefs lose hoping to see the demise of my least favorite NFL players, Kelce and Mahomes, and I do love seeing Pete Davidson looking like a crackhead taking photos with fans, but there is so much more. It is our duty as the people to look deeper into everything, and it is my duty in the media to inform and press charges, making sure that the public isn't blind anymore.
Kendrick Lamar's performance went over so many peoples heads. Almost every single headline I saw this morning after the Super Bowl and even last night was all just talking about how Drake must be shaking in his boots and everything about the feud, maybe a few just saying how it was “a good performance!” but nothing of substance. In a Forbes article on the divided reactions to the performance, the author, Callum Booth, shows how many people watched it but that doesn't mean they really listened, saying that we have to consider “how they're watching”. I'm here as always to give you a headline that should be on the front page; the contents is what everyone should be thinking about and talking about but everyone is too scared to even utter. Kendrick was so incredibly brave putting on that whole performance and it is our duty to back him up in this revolution and be brave too. As this article progresses, we have to keep in mind a few things. First, the Super Bowl does not pay their performers much, they have to pay for many things out of pocket, the whole gig is for publicity, and since Lamar is a very famous rapper who is 9th biggest artist in the world (as said by Spotify), there is purpose for why he would perform this much bigger than for publicity. Secondly, our current US President, Donald Trump, was in the audience for the Super Bowl. He is the first president to attend the all American game even with his huge controversy across America, dividing our nation between conservatives and liberals. Thirdly, millions of people watch this one halftime show, 113.06 million to be exact, having to see this performance, a third of the whole country forced to terms with everything Kendrick is saying. If he did this performance at a concert and clips got out through TikTok it wouldn't reach as many people directly, and it would only be through blurry iPhone videos that wouldn't show the whole purpose of the performance. Lamar had the opportunity to discomfort millions of viewers and make them watch him and listen to what he has to say, and he took that opportunity faster than you can say “Not Like Us”.
The performance started with the audience lights showing a loading screen going up until it hits 100, the whole stage a playstation controller with the famous ✕, 〇, ☐, and △. Sam Jackson himself as America's Uncle Sam introduced the set as the “Great American Game”. Kendrick started rapping an unreleased song, perched on the hood of the black GNX from the cover of his latest album… GNX. As soon as Sam Jackson appeared in his top hat as Uncle Sam you should have already known, but as soon as the music gears up and Kendrick says those words that will become history whether we like it or not, you have to understand that this is not just a performance, this is a protest. My jaw dropped when I heard Kendrick say, “The revolution is about to be televised/You picked the right time but the wrong guy”. He is not holding back, and personally I don't think this is a metaphor at all, this is a call to action. He is blatantly saying in the presence of the President in front of almost all of America that they picked the wrong ruler and the wrong guy, but even with Trump as president and his people in office, there is no going back, that the revolution has already begun and they can't stop it. If you take away anything from his performance, just take away that one line, it is, honest to god, more than enough, but what would Kendrick be if not more than more than enough. After performing squabble up, Sam Jackson reprimands him saying that they're being “too loud, too reckless, too ghetto” and asking if they “even know how to play the game?”. Kendrick is making a stand, and it will make people mad, but as he has said in his song, “tv off”, “somebody gotta do it”, and so he will, even if it doesnt mean hes playing the game of pleasing the White people in being calm and safe. Then Kendrick makes more strides when he is in the middle of an American flag made out of Black bodies. He is quite literally symbolising how the fabric of America is made out of and by Black people, it is the core of America in its history, present, and future, and yet somehow that's not “American”, that's not playing the game right. He plays “Humble” with his American flag dancers but as soon as they get out of the square button, everyone scrambles, leaving their unity in fear. Out of the safety of the game, they enter a prison yard, another incredible symbol by Lamar as he goes into “DNA”, a song quite literally about his identity in terms of his race. He stops the song abruptly, and in my favorite part of the performance, the cameras pan to the audience we're they're lighting up the phrase, “Warning, Wrong Way”. He's playing the game wrong, not in the way the White people want him to, he's going out of bounds, he's being reckless and provocative and rebellious but most of all he's being real and that's so uncomfortable to everyone that it needs to be leashed, but Kendrick will break the rules anyway. Isn't there no reason to play the game when the game is rigged itself?
He then plays “euphoria” and “man at the garden” with people that Sam Jackson calls his “homeboys”. He even makes fun of the game, with his lyrics in euphoria of “have you ever played the game?”. Now we can see that in the prison yard there are light poles with people on them. Keep in mind this is only a few days after the Black and female Philadelphia Mayor Cherelle Parker pleaded for the people of her city to stop climbing light poles in celebration after a win such as the Super Bowl. Yet Lamar publicly has his dancers climbing these light poles. Every rule that there is to be broken, he is breaking. He is not playing the game, he is strictly retaliating it, turning it into a mockery of itself. Uncle Sam is not happy about all of this rebellion and so he demands the scorekeeper to “deduct one life”. People are never happy about mockery and rebellion, so they try their best to stop it with events such as arrests or stopping peaceful protests, but there is no stopping motions like these. Kendrick and his dancers then perform “peekaboo” in the X box, where they are trapped inside, which alludes to how everyone, but especially Black people, are stuck inside this game that is America. As said by @toureshow on TikTok, since the playstation buttons can only be seen from an aerial view, the dancers and Kendrick from their view can't see that they're in the game. This shows the blind incarceration and abuse of people of color in our country and how the system, the game, is made from the get go so they can never win. Getting advice from his female dancers, he teases “Not Like Us”, but ultimately “slows it down” by performing “luther” and "All the Stars" with SZA. Uncle Sam thoroughly enjoys this switch up, saying that “this is what America wants, nice, calm” they don't want anything uncomfortable, even if that is the hard truth. Of course, Kendrick doesn't keep on playing the game, he retaliates again. Now, listen up, this is what I need every single one of you to pay attention to: what he's saying introducing “Not Like Us”. His female dancers are warning him as he teases it, the introduction goes as follows:
“Oh no,”
“It's a cultural divide Imma get it on the floor”
“You really bout to do it?”
“40 acres and a mule this is bigger than the music”
“You really bout to do it?”
“Yeah they try to rig the game but you can't fake influence,”
If anyone in this country, or even on this planet, thinks that this performance is just a performance, this introduction blatantly proves them wrong. Kendrick literally says that this is bigger than the music, that this is more than a feud between rappers, a diss track, or pr publicity, this is a full blown revolution. He even calls back to the 1865 bill that called for 40 acres and a mule that newly freed slaves were promised yet never given. He is telling the audience quite literally that America is trying to rig the country, the game, so that certain groups have power and others don't, the rulers of this country being racists and sexists and trying to spread that to everyone. But, Kendrick is proving once again there is no stopping what's already in motion, that influence doesn't just come to someone with a title, it comes to people who have armies, like Kendrick. He has fans that trust him and a platform where people are forced to listen to him, and that is where the true influence lies, that is where the real change will come from. Kendrick has the power to continue rolling the revolution ahead and he is urging people, maybe even begging them to truly hear what he's saying and finally retaliate.
He then plays the most anticipated hit, “Not Like Us”, finally and fully going against the game and never going back. The song had some crazy iconic moments, my top two favorites are when Kendrick calls Drake out by name and looks directly into the camera with a devilish grin, and when you can hear the crowd scream “a minor” so loud even the official recording picks it up. If you don't know audio, it takes a lot to hear an audience at all in a recording like that, so to hear it that loudly is truly astonishing. At the end of the song he sings the lyrics “are you my friend?/are we locked in?/ then step this way, step that way/then step this way, step that way”. This is of course just a lyric in the song about the feud telling his friends to fully commit loyalty and choose a side, but I strongly believe this applies to his political metaphors. He is demanding people to commit their loyalty, but this time to commit to the revolution. This is where it gets interesting. Anyone who knows entertainment or media also understands that in performances like these and in concerts you start with the second single, the one that will make people hyped up but not the biggest one, so you end with the biggest hit to end the night with a bang. Instead of ending with a bang rapping his biggest hit, which would be the safest, most comfortable, familiar even, way to end it, he goes a different route. Kendrick then goes on to sing “tv off”, a purposeful ending and call to action. He directly says to hundreds of millions of people, looking into the camera, “they acting bad but somebody gotta do it/got my foot up on the gas but somebody gotta do it/turn this tv off, turn this tv off”. I did as the king told me and promptly turned off my tv, not inundating myself with more commercials and concussions but instead taking time to realize what was just demanded of me. Kendrick ended his Super Bowl performance telling America that he is the one putting his foot on the gas, pushing the revolution because no one is doing it so he is taking the responsibility and leading. After the lights go out, the last little note in his performance is that the crowd lights flash one more time, saying “Game Over”. Though it seemed impossible, though to escape a game embedded in the very roots and definition of his life, he escaped. Not just escaped, but he won. Though it may seem impossible, through the waves of retaliation and pushing back against authority, we the people, who have the right to a democracy, also have the right to rebel. As said in the Declaration of Independence which makes this nation as it is, we have the right to overthrow an abusive government. We have rights, and we can, and will, win.
This was more than just a performance, this was the push for a rebellion that has been years in the making. It was a Black Lives Matter protest, it was a protest against our corrupt nation and probably against the President himself. But most importantly, it was a call to action. There should be change and there will be change, because there has to be. People like Kendrick can't be alone in this struggle, there needs to be a real retaliation. We all need to get up off our couches and do something instead of waiting for someone else to. Just one person with his foot up on the gas wont do anything, that effort would just turn into a painful Sisyphus stalemate, but if we all band together and do what's right, we can win. We can unleash out of this painful game and get what we all deserve. We can get the constitutional right to a truly equal democracy and we can win the game. I've already said too much and I've rambled because the topic of this new revolution is one that I am not completely educated in, though everyone needs to be. This isn't an issue that can be cast aside, because as Kendrick said a million times in his performance a million different ways, there's no going back. So, join the fight, go on TikTok or your news platform or call a friend and educate yourself on the depth of this performance and the revolution. Find out what you can do, and do it. The revolution was just televised, and we picked the only time, and it's up to us to pick the right guy.
So, if you need a critique, there is someone you can call, because I am always watching over Hollywood like a hawk wearing Harry Winston.
Xoxo,
The Angeles Watcher
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