Halftime

The Kendrick Lamar show

Kendrick Lamar just performed the Super Bowl halftime show to…mixed reviews, more polarized than the 2024 election. For fans of rap’s biggest name, the performance was a masterful artistic statement, the type they’d come to expect from someone who’s won 20+ Grammy’s and the Pulitzer. For detractors, it was a “DEI” halftime show mumbled by a talentless hack. I’ve never had strong opinions about the singing and dancing that happens between the tackling at the Super Bowl, but I do this time. I loved it.

Super Bowl halftime shows have always been legacy performances. It’s where artists who’ve proven their appeal to the American masses go to relive the hits on the Nation’s biggest stage, lip-syncing along to songs that made their record companies millions in the 90s. Even 2022’s west coast hip-hop showcase, which I enjoyed, reeked of glory days nostalgia. In carefully curated rustic modern living rooms across America, millenials approaching 40 clumsily rapped along to songs about bitches next to their wife and kids, pausing only to fetch another cold one from the kitchen. The Super Bowl halftime show isn’t about creating substantive cultural discourse. It’s about good times, damn it.

Kendrick Lamar could have done that. He’s got over a decade’s worth of true radio bangers infectious enough to get your gran-pappy out of his La-Z-Boy. I’m sure there’s a dissapointed Apple Music Producer somewhere still longing to back Lamar’s “Alright” with a 100 piece marching band.

Lamar might be that sort of legacy act one day, but he isn’t right now. He’s a true artist, one of our biggest and best, that only seems to grow sharper each year. That’s why his fans love him. I would have certainly enjoyed a career-spanning medley of Backseat Freestyle, Swimming Pools, King Kunta, N95, the hits, but I’d forget that performance next week. I’ll remember the performance he gave for years.

Much has already been said about the content of Lamar’s performance. Like alot of great art, you can see what you want to see in it. Was the stage a nod to Squid Game? Or was it a Playstation controller? Does it matter? It was definitely a statement on the criminal justice system right? Or was it mostly about socioeconomic inequality? I don’t know about all that, but here’s my take on it from someone who’s followed his music closely for years.