So if you know me at all, one of the things you know is that I love music. I haven’t posted about it much here because there is SO MUCH stuff to talk about it in healthcare and politics. As I write this, however, most of the country recently watched Super Bowl LIX.
After my beloved Buffalo Bills lost to the Kansas City Chiefs in the playoffs for the second time in five years and the Chiefs advanced to the Super Bowl for the third time. I was less than excited for the game. However, I looked forward to the halftime show because it was going to feature my favorite rap artist, Kendrick Lamar.
And the small, mischievous part of me looked forward to the aftermath we’re in now.
I waited for people to come out of the woodwork to say how much they hated the show, how rap is not music, and the inevitable comparison to Prince’s halftime performance or some other guitar-centric performer. (Don’t get me wrong. The Prince halftime show IS in the top three Super Bowl performances of all time, and I’m sure Kendrick Lamar would say that, too.)
I didn’t engage too much with this on Facebook. I had a nuanced conversation with an old acquaintance on Facebook, where we got to talk more about the simplification of music and whether that was more in rap or pop music, and different electronic music genres. I alluded to the greater political implications, though we didn’t get into the weeds there since we both know we disagree with each other politically. This post is going to talk about that, but it was not prompted by that conversation, but more of what I saw from the others who were far more blunt (and far less reasoned) in their critique.
I know those people will come because I kind of was one of those people once. I’d like to think I was never dismissive of rap music, but I probably was, softly. As a drummer, I used to think I only wanted to listen to music with a good beat and I figured that could only be with live instruments. I know better now.
So every year when people, including some of my most musical friends, dismiss rap music as “not musical,” my hackles are raised.
On a basic level, it’s silly to pronounce it “not music” just because it’s electronic instruments - yes, there are some programmed beats that are easy to use and throw lyrics over, but the technology and ear to put those beats, samples, and melodies together still requires talent. Before Kanye West was an awful human being, he brought one of my favorite examples of this - “Stronger” samples the Daft Punk song but manipulates it in such a way and throws a heavier beat over it to make an absolute banger.
I was in a musical doldrums in 2014 when Kendrick Lamar blew the doors off my brainspace with “i.” It was the first time I really took notice of rap as protest music (which says a lot about how little I listened to rap). I still don’t know that much about rap, but I have learned more with each year of the last decade.
Kendrick has remained my favorite rapper since then. I was pleased to see him wipe the floor with Drake during their feud, since Drake’s music always gives me sleepy vibes, and even more pleased to see him take on the halftime show.
Another friend and I commiserated on the halftime show’s audio mix - a recurring problem and one that might be partially responsible for what would eventually become my strong dislike for the Black-Eyed Peas.
But aside from that, the performance was awesome, and patriotic in the most 2025 way. As with so many of his performances and albums (one of which won a Pulitzer), the symbolism was everywhere. The American flag (during “HUMBLE.”) depicted as built on the backs of Black Americans (after which the stripes fell into swastika shapes, depicting America now).
The song in which he calls Drake a pedophile, but recontextualized with “The revolution about to be televised, you picked the right time but the wrong guy” as recently-elected President Donald Trump, an adjudicated rapist and multi-count felon who had been booed by the crowd earlier, sat in the stands. The audience lit up as “WARNING WRONG WAY.” Samuel L. Jackson as Uncle Sam (“too loud, too reckless, too ghetto”). Referencing 40 acres and a mule (”this is bigger than the music”). SZA and Serena Williams as badass Black women claiming the power they have and deserve. And so much more symbolism.
An incredible protest and performance in one of the most American venues and occasions.
Shout out to Tehom Center Publishing, Kind Academy, and so many other accounts and folks who have offered explanations and lesson plans - I strongly urge you, if you didn’t understand the halftime performance, to watch it with captions and then Google any of these resources or search them on Threads/BlueSky to get educated, as I did.
You don’t actually have to like Kendrick’s performance, but if you learn more about it, there’s a decent chance you might like it more, as with anything that aims for positive social progress. I still won’t fault you if you don’t like his performance or his music, because taste is subjective. The point is not to convince you to become a die-hard Kendrick fan, but to realize how much musicality, poetry, and zeitgeist is present and plays an active role in the music. The idea is to realize that the performance was anything but (as so many tried to label it) “boring.”
We do have to confront the fact that some of the reasons why we may not take to Kendrick’s music right away and wistfully cry about wanting “real musicians” are rooted in the fact that we (I include myself here) have been so used to white people and the music marketed to white people. If I had a nickel for every time someone griped about the lack of “real instruments” being played and if we could just have a country concert all would be well, I could probably make a dent in my student loans. (Incidentally, someone on Threads quipped that we should probably have a country concert next year with the latest Grammy Winner of Best Country Album…Beyoncé. Bet we’d see some conniptions then.)
Besides, it is known that the Halftime Show isn’t a live performance in the full concert sense - it’s backing tracks, with the singers working live and any other instrumentalists playing along. So rap music lends itself perfectly to that (the last six performances - 2020’s Shakira and J.Lo, 2021’s The Weeknd, 2022’s group performance of Dr. Dre with Snoop Dogg, Mary J. Blige, upside-down 50 Cent, Anderson. Paak, Eminem, and Kendrick Lamar’s first halftime appearance, 2023’s solo domination by Rihanna, 2024’s Usher, Alicia Keys, and company, and 2025’s Kendrick Lamar - have been perfectly suited to the format and each year people who don’t look like any of those performers (except Eminem) pipe up with the same complaints even though the performances have been strong.
You also have to acknowledge that patriotism is not the same as nationalism. Loving one’s country can mean criticizing it and wanting to change it for the better. Someone tried to make the point that John Denver, in a Rocket Mortgage commercial, brought together more people in the stadium than Kendrick Lamar did, which brings us back to the point that we are all so used to music marketed to white people that a singalong to “Take Me Home, Country Roads” seems like the real victory - and yes, sometimes bringing everyone together IS the goal with music (with my own band, we play ‘90s covers and there’s nothing better than getting the whole crowd singing).
But from John Fogerty in the ‘60s to Johnny Cash and Gil Scott-Heron in the 70s (“the revolution will be televised”) to John Mellencamp’s “Pink Houses” and Grandmaster Flash in the ‘80s, to Rage Against the Machine in the ‘90s (don’t even get me started on conservatives misunderstanding that band), musicians have written polarizing protest songs that are staples of history. Long before Trump, Republican politicians have convinced their fanbase to look the other way as they strip their (our) freedoms; convinced them that they benefit from preserving the status quo; and convinced them that anything that went against the musical grain of the time was bad (or they just purposely misinterpreted it, as with the Mellencamp song). Now people I know who LOVE when my band whips out “Fortunate Son” will tell you that Kendrick Lamar’s performance was so terrible and that the NFL should have brought out some country or some “real music.” Except that in this moment, Kendrick Lamar didn’t take the benign path and sing an old song that doesn’t bother anyone (don’t get me wrong - I’ll sing along to “Take Me Home, Country Roads” any day). Kendrick sent a message that we needed - it was a protest by and for people who love a country but who acknowledge that it is being dragged the wrong way by a petty felon who just wants fame and to stave off the people to whom he owes money. It was a protest in the same vein as Fogerty, Mellencamp, and any of those artists. It might have been a different genre, but it was just as musical and just as powerful.
You don’t have to like rap. But like K-Dot said - this is bigger than the music, and the music of that uniquely American performance was a massive message.
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As an aside, there are a handful of people (none of whom I know personally, thank goodness) who tried to call Jon Batiste’s “Star-Spangled Banner” the worst performance of the anthem…there is no discourse or discussion to be held there. Those are the people who are feeling emboldened to say the N-word with the hard R now that Trump is back in power. The only way to think that was a “bad” rendition is to care more about the color of Batiste’s skin.
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