On Feb. 9, Super Bowl LIX (59) took place, the world’s most popular TV program of all time. This year, over 126 million viewers in the United States watched, making it the most-watched Super Bowl in history. The halftime show, a performance by American rapper Kendrick Lamar, brought in over 133.5 million viewers, up 3% from Usher’s performance last year. Not only did he bring in more viewers than the actual game, but he also brought in a bigger audience than Michael Jackson’s 1993 halftime show.
Yes, the halftime show was a big success on Sunday, seeing as Lamar himself traveled more yards in 13 minutes than the Chiefs entire rushing output. However, people are continuously going back to his performance to take a deeper look into the meaning of each decision. Was it all a message to end his feud with Drake? Was he calling the government out? Well, let’s take a deeper look and decide for ourselves.
The show started out with the field set as if it were a PlayStation controller. Each performance space was shaped like the square, circle, ‘X’, and triangle buttons. Then, none other than actor, Samuel L. Jackson portrayed the character of Uncle Sam. He said, “This is the great American game,” and the stage was set for the rest of the performance. Many people speculate this is bigger than the Kendrick-Drake beef and is actually Lamar calling out the corrupt political system. About a minute in, Lamar states,“The revolution is about to be televised, you picked the right time but the wrong guy,” a nod to the presidential election outcome. After singing a part of his song, “Squabble Up,” Uncle Sam expresses his concern that the performance so far is “too loud, too reckless, too ghetto,” which can be translated to showing the oppression of minorities in today’s world.
Lamar’s hit song, “Humble” was performed next while he stood in the middle of his dancers, who created the image of an American flag. This is symbolism for the divide in our country. Throughout the next few minutes, the words in the audience lit up by lights that wrote, “WARNING WRONG WAY,” also a hint that our society is not moving progressively but actually moving backward. Uncle Sam’s demand to the scorekeeper to deduct one life can be interpreted that Lamar is not acting the way the government wants him to, so he will be facing consequences.
On the other hand, there were a few nods to the Drake feud. The first hint Lamar gave us that he would play the Grammy-winning, viral distrack, “Not Like Us,” was him talking to his background dancers saying, “I wanna make a move. I wanna perform their favorite song, but you know they love to sue,” talking about the lawsuit involving the two stars. After his backup dancers asked what song he was talking about, the beginning music of “Not Like Us” started to play, which resulted in Lamar smiling and saying, “Yeah, that song.” Tricking the audience, he went on to perform “Luther” and “All the Stars” with singer-songwriter, SZA, who wore a stunning red get-up and sung mind-blowing vocals.
After giving the performers a compliment for being “nice and calm” (which is supposedly “what America wants”), Uncle Sam quickly regrets his words as the starting music for “Not Like Us” officially played again, knowing the trouble this will ensue.
After going back and forth with his dancers, who egged him on, Lamar made the crowd go wild as he performed the long-awaited hit song. Only censoring curse words, he did not shy away from calling out Drake by name and smiling directly at the camera as he sang, “Say Drake, I hear you like them young.” This led to Lamar, along with the entire crowd, whose mic was unmuted until this line, singing the line most known, “And it’s probably a minor.” Speaking of A-minor, this double entendre is hanging from Lamar’s neck on a necklace with a lowercase ‘a’ which is how A-minor is written in sheet music. Serena Williams was then shown for about five seconds, doing a famous dance she originally did after winning gold at the Olympics. However the bigger reason she was there was because she publicly dated Drake back in 2015.
He ended with “TV off,” bringing out his record-producer, Mustard, who was honestly just happy to be included and also had the audience lit up with lights again, this time writing, “Game Over.” The song was specifically chosen as the last song, but who was it directed towards? Drake? President Donald Trump? It’s all up for interpretation, as we just saw the evidence for both.
However, I’ll leave you with one more quote from this performance. Lamar said, “It’s a cultural divide, Ima get it on the floor. 40 acres in the mule, this is bigger than the music. Yeah, they tried to rig the game, but you can’t fake influence.” I think it’s obvious he isn’t just talking about a little feud, but more important things going on in the world politically. What do you think?
