T he rapid pace of change and the constant flood of urgent news make it difficult to dwell on any single event. But some moments deserve a pause for reflection. This month’s Justice+Art highlights Kendrick Lamar’s Super Bowl halftime show. Just last month, Pulitzer Prize and 22-time Grammy winner Kendrick Lamar took the stage and delivered what many consider a landmark American work of art. This special edition explores how he achieved it—and why, for so many, it is being hailed as transcendent.
One of the most famous and widely viewed works of art, the Mona Lisa, attracts an estimated 10 million visitors annually. According to Sports Illustrated, Kendrick Lamar’s halftime show shattered records, drawing 133.5 million viewers—surpassing Michael Jackson’s 133.4 million in 1993. The significance of so many people worldwide experiencing an art installation at the same time can hardly be overstated. Social media amplified the moment, affirming Lamar’s impact as seismic.
Lamar unleashed an artistic inferno rooted in Black culture, Black poetry, and Black resistance.
In less than 15 minutes, Lamar offered a lavish, layered thunderclap of words, music, symbolism, and theater in what one critic called “existential.” During this profound display, Lamar showcased the range of his artistry, performing a medley of 10 songs culled from his two-decade career, including “All the Stars,” his Oscar nominated Black Panther duet with SZA; “Humble” from his Pulitzer-winning album, Damn; “Peekabo” and”Squabble Up” from his latest album GNX; and, of course, his 2024 multi-Grammy-winning smash hit, “Not Like Us”—a diss track that slammed the door on his highly publicized feud with fellow rapper Drake.
I got power, poison, pain and joy inside my DNA/ I got hustle though, ambition, flow inside my DNA.”
Listen to Lamar perform “All the Stars,” “Humble,” and “Not Like Us.”
Lamar is known for the nuanced, layered meanings of his lyrics and his insightful political and social commentary. His catalog of music raises deep questions about what it means to be human, the struggle of the soul, and the polarity of forces that fight for control.
Early in the performance, he announced “The revolution ’bout to be televised. You picked the right time, but the wrong guy”—an inversion of Gil Scott-Heron’s 1971 song “The Revolution Will Not Be Televised,” which according to his biographer Marcus Baram, Scott-Heron wrote in part to highlight “the disconnect between the consumerism celebrated on TV with the protests happening on the streets of America.”
The iconic actor Samuel L. Jackson—dressed as Uncle Sam—served as the narrator for Lamar’s 13-minute show. At one point during the performance, the actor accused Lamar of being “too loud, too reckless, too ghetto,” voicing slurs often hurled at Black Americans and hip-hop music. His admonishment to “play the game” spoke to many viewers who feel played by a game they can’t escape.
Lamar hit hard on the theme of the “gamification of the American dream” at the biggest game in American sports, with a stage lit to resemble a PlayStation controller and nods to other games like Tic-Tac-Toe. Furthering the game metaphor, Lamar invited fellow Compton native—and arguably the greatest athlete of all time—Serena Williams to ‘Crip Walk’ during the show. Once linked to LA gangs, the dance has since become a cultural symbol of Compton. When Williams briefly danced in celebration after winning Olympic gold in 2012, she faced media backlash. But on the Super Bowl stage, Lamar and Williams flipped the game—this time, she moved freely, without fear of retribution.
The visual imagery of Lamar’s show furthered the message of this music. Dancers dressed in patriotic colors created a formation resembling a divided American flag. At one point the dancers bent forward, lifting their backs in the air, which many on social media said was meant to indicate how America was built on the backs of Black Americans during slavery.
“Forty acres and a mule, this is bigger than the music. Yeah, they tried to rig the game, but you can’t fake influence.”
The phrase is a reference to General Sherman’s Field Order No. 15 which promised to allocate some 400,000 acres of land once owned by Confederates to former enslaved Black people. Each family would receive up to 40 acres. Some families also received a mule to work the land. The promise was broken when Andrew Johnson, President Lincoln’s successor, overturned the order in 1865.
Lamar carried the theme of ‘the game’ through to the close of the show. As he mimed the action of turning off a TV with a remote, the stage went dark, and the words Game Over lit up the stands—a wake-up call reminding us that we hold the controller in our hands.
A piece of art that will define an era, created in real time in front of the largest television audience ever gathered. The tools for resistance and revolution are at our disposal.
