On Feb. 9, my friends and I packed into my living room, excited to watch the 2025 Super Bowl. Despite playful arguments over who was rooting for the Chiefs or the Eagles, I sat down eager to watch only one thing: Kendrick Lamar’s halftime show.
As the halftime show drew closer, I was expecting to jam out with my friends to some of his most popular songs like “Humble” and “DNA.” What I was not expecting was to watch one of the greatest and most artistic political statements I have ever seen on television. From start to finish, Kendrick’s performance demonstrated a powerful and symbolic message about the injustices in our country, all while providing entertainment for everyone in my living room to sing along with.
While I had a smile on my face throughout the entire performance, some social media users did not feel the same. Post-halftime show, my Instagram feed was flooded with people hating on the performance, calling it underwhelming. However, I would argue that it was anything but. The people who didn’t like Lamar’s performance completely missed the entire concept. The masterful symbolism embedded throughout the show made this Super Bowl halftime, in my opinion, one of the best I have ever seen. To those who missed the concept, let me break it down.
The entire performance was structured around the theme of a game right from the start. Samuel L. Jackson, playing Uncle Sam, introduced the show as “The Great American Game.” The stage was also set up to look like symbols on a PlayStation controller, further driving home this “game” theme. Throughout the performance, this theme was used to symbolize how life in America is a very tricky game for Black people. They must play it right, following all the rules that society has inflicted upon them, to succeed.
In his opening song, Lamar said “The revolution’s about to be televised, you picked the right time but the wrong guy.” There are many interpretations of this line, but I feel that it’s a direct call to the state of our country, especially post-election. Plus, I feel that it’s no coincidence that Lamar said that America picked “the wrong guy” in a stadium where President Trump was in the audience.
After opening with “Squabble Up,” Lamar was interrupted by Samuel L. Jackson yelling that the performance was “too loud, too reckless, too ghetto.” As Jackson played Uncle Sam, a character who has historically represented America, this interruption spoke to how America systemically views and criticizes Black culture as a whole. Jackson comments that Lamar needs to “tighten up” in order to play the American Game correctly. In response to this, Lamar performed his song “Humble,” speaking to how white America expects Black people to be quiet, sit down and “be humble.” During this song, dancers wearing red, white and blue attire arranged themselves in an American flag formation, leaving a gap down the middle. Lamar performed this song standing in the center of the divided flag, making a statement on how America is very divided in this post-election climate. Each of the dancers making up the flag was Black, which I took to symbolize how America was built on the foundation of slavery.
Later in the show, Lamar and special guest, SZA, performed their song “All of the Stars,” to which Jackson responded “That’s what America wants! Nice, calm.” This once again attests to how America only values Black culture when it fits into their perception of acceptable.
After this, Lamar played “Not Like Us.” In what I thought was one of the most powerful lines of the entire performance, Lamar opened this song by saying “40 acres and a mule, this is bigger than the music.” To me, this line encapsulates Lamar’s message throughout the entire halftime show. 40 acres and a mule is what became widely known as the reparations promised to formerly enslaved people by General William T. Sherman in 1865. However, this promise was rescinded after President Lincoln’s death and never lived out. The line “40 acres and a mule, this is bigger than the music” shows that Lamar’s halftime performance did not aim solely to perform, but to speak out on the injustices that Black people have been facing in America ever since our country was created.
A fan-favorite special guest in the halftime show was iconic tennis player Serena Williams. During “Not Like Us,” Williams was shown on camera crip walking to the beat of the song. The crip walk is a dance that was created in Compton, where both Williams and Lamar are from. After Willaims crip walked following her tennis match win at Wimbledon 2012, she received hateful and racist backlash. Now, Williams performing this same move on a stage that all of America was watching showed an unapologetic celebration of Black culture. It is also no coincidence that Williams is an ex-girlfriend of Drake’s, who is the subject of the “Not Like Us” diss track.
At the end of the performance, the lights in the stadium went dark, only showing the words “game over” spelled out in lights in the audience. This has been interpreted as a call to Lamar’s feud with Drake, but also about “the Great American Game” that the entire show symbolized. This halftime show is exactly what America needed to see right now, and Kendrick Lamar was the perfect man for the job. His political commentary through his performance was loud and powerful, all while entertaining millions of people across the country. I’ve been watching the performance on YouTube ever since, and am an even bigger Kendrick Lamar fan now than ever before.
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