Kendick Lamar’s Halftime Revolution: A History Lesson in Storytelling
To understand Kendrick Lamar’s Super Bowl LIX halftime performance you must start with The Great Migration. Labor shortages after World War I, combined with poor socioeconomic conditions, farm failures and crop damage, as well as Jim Crow laws led to a mass migration of Black Americans from the South to cities such as Chicago where Kendrick Lamar’s parents came from. People also moved west to cities such as Los Angeles (i.e., Compton) where Lamar was born and raised. For Super Bowl LIX Lamar and his team pgLang returned to the Deep South (Louisiana) where Black music was born.
The Great Migration significantly altered urban and rural populations throughout the United States across multiple generations, and it reshaped numerous Northern urban centers. As a result of the concentration of Black people in a place free of Jim Crow and lynchings, the Great Migration arguably spurred Black political action and the civil rights movement. — Britannica
Social issues followed Black Americans to their new destinations, especially poverty and racism, largely in the form of segregation and carcerality, which refers to a system of punishment and incapacitation to control people. Lamar’s mother Paula convinced his father, who was associated with a Chicago gang, to move to California for a better life. Unfortunately, the promise of a new life in Compton was clouded by gang violence. Black gangs, which formed in the early 1970s, had two federations: the Bloods and Crips. Lamar grew up around Westside Pirus gang members (branched from the OG Crips), but he is not gang affiliated.
Music was a constant presence in Kenny and Paula’s household, exposing Lamar to a diverse range of artists from an early age. The Grammy winner also credits his parents’ contrasting personalities — “my father being a complete realist, just in the streets. And my mother being a dreamer” — for his musical tastes. — Nasha Smith
All of these influences, along with his reverence for the late Tupac Shakur and 1990s hip hop culture, are evident in Kendrick Lamar’s Super Bowl LIX halftime performance. At the time, there was a lot of pressure on groups such as Public Enemy and N.W.A. to not perform certain songs. So let’s break down some of the elements of K-Dot’s halftime performance:
At the top of the performance we see a Buick GNX car that is also featured on the cover of Lamar’s most recent album of the same name. The show’s art director Shelley Rodgers found one that could be gutted and turned into a “clown car” for the show.
Right on cue, as Lamar rapped his way through “Bodies,” the car that Eastland found and gutted popped open to reveal a small army of dancers. It highlighted just one of four stages Lamar used during the halftime show. Each performance space was shaped like a button on a PlayStation-style controller, a performance intended to portray Lamar’s life as a video game. — Angela Watercutter, Wired
One person wrote on Twitter, “PlayStation buttons as the 4 main stages. Uncle Sam narrating the game. Kendrick beating the game and turning it off as soon as he mastered it. Absolute cinema,” added another. The message “Game Over” seemed to be a nod at Drake who engaged Lamar in a historic rap battle in 2024. The performance also seemed to pay homage to Squid Game, Netflix’s South Korean dystopian drama series. In the series indebted people are invited to play a series of children’s games for a chance at a large cash prize. Instead of green sweatsuits the halftime performers wore red, white, and blue sweatsuits that are the colors of the U.S. flag and, alternately, two colors (red and blue) representing the Bloods and Crips.
When the revolution happens, you’re going to have to be in the streets. If you want to make change in society, you have to get off your ass and take action.
Lamar squats on the Buick GNX and says: The revolution is about to be televised / you picked the right time but the wrong guy. Here he referenced Gil Scott-Heron’s song “The Revolution Will Not Be Televised,” which tells people that they can’t be passive participants in the “revolution.” Lamar said this with the newly elected U.S. President in attendance (the “wrong guy”). The song foreshadowed the development of hip-hop and, most certainly, Lamar grew up learning about the time period when it was created (the Black Panthers originated in Oakland). Next, he and his dancers performed the song “Squabble Up.”
Lamar followed this song with “Humble” (my favorite) and he stood top and center of a group of male dancers who were arranged by color, to create the U.S. flag. Lamar’s placement on the steps divided the flag, which represents a divided nation. In an interview, Lamar said of this song and album, “Definitely. It’s the ego. When you look at the song titles on this album, these are all my emotions and all my self-expressions of who I am.” At the Super Bowl the song and performance pointed a finger at the U.S. and it’s current status and the past as the U.S. was built on the free labor (backs) of Black bodies. In another part of the “Humble” performance Lamar stood alone while the others bowed to the current regime, possibly paying homage to August Landmesser, a German man who was suggested to be the man appearing in a 1936 photograph conspicuously refusing to perform the Nazi salute (see Elon Musk).
Lamar transitioned from “DNA” to “Euphoria,” the latter of which is a diss track the rapper wrote in response to rapper Drake’s “Push Ups” and “Taylor Made Freestyle.” “Euphoria” takes its name from a TV drama executive produced by Drake, as well as referencing Kill Bill: Volume 2 in response to the film’s heroine Uma Thurman’s support for Drake in the battle. It should be noted that Lamar performed these songs on what appears to be either a prison yard or a neighborhood block (through the middle of the game controller). Lamar is known for using double entendres or multiple meanings in his lyrics and music videos. Actor Samuel L. Jackson appears as Uncle Sam and cautions Lamar about what to perform (calm, nice songs) or not to perform (rap/diss tracks). Jackson’s commentary about being “Too loud too ghetto too reckless” and saying “Cultured Chico’s” reflected government authority and national identity. Sam also represented societal constraints on Black art and protest.
For the “Man at the Garden” segment Lamar performed at the base of a light pole, with a group of young men accompanying him. These men represented Hyphy culture that emerged in the late 1990s in Oakland before rising to prominence throughout the wider area in the early 2000s. Above them a young man lays on top of the light (perhaps a callback to Lamar’s “Alright” music video), which was the rapper’s way of recognizing the Bay area. Lamar also featured Hyphy in his video for “Squabble Up” (see above). Next, Uncle Sam(uel) said this was a “culture cheat code,” again referencing video games where a player can enter a code to gain an advantage. Lamar then performed “Peekaboo” inside of the “X” symbol with dancers dressed in white. He also teased “Not Like Us” before performing “Luther” and “All the Stars” with SZA. Uncle Sam(uel) appeared afterward to congratulate Kendrick for ‘giving America what it wanted’ with the two pop songs.
Before performing the second to last song, a must anticipated and awaited version of “Not Like Us” Lamar says: 40 acres and a mule / this is bigger than the music. He referenced an unfinished Reconstruction-era “revolution,” that has come to serve as a stand-in for the period’s ill-fated promises (i.e., reparations) and unfulfilled potential.
Moreover, schools were built, new towns formed, and men and women began establishing new lives outside of slavery. Reconstruction’s most revolutionary moment had been wrenched into place by the demands of displaced people. — Bennett Parten
Lastly, the halftime dancers didn’t just dance. They marched, evoking discipline and uniformity while wearing red, white and blue. Serena Williams who was once fined for ‘Crip walking’ at Wimbledon got her payback on the football field. This was Kendrick Lamar’s Super Bowl call-to-action in the face of an increasingly far-right, authoritarian, and ultranationalist political movement in the U.S. Lamar ended the 13-minute journey with “TV Off” (another favorite of mine) and perhaps pointing back to his earlier Gil Scott-Heron reference he turned the game/TV off by clicking an invisible remote control. Once again, the revolution may or may not be televised but it definitely was HEARD.
Yeah they tried to rig the game but you can’t fake influence.