This past February, Kendrick performed an outstanding Super Bowl Halftime Show. Unlike many previous Super Bowl shows, Kendrick layered subtle—and less than subtle—political messages throughout his show. These political messages were likely targeted at Trump and his administration, who have unraveled decades of progress in the equal rights movements within days of being in office. One of Trump’s actions was targeting DEI initiatives which aimed to prevent discrimination based on race or gender—an initiative which protected African Americans, like Kendrick Lamar, from unjust bias. Kendrick’s halftime performance highlighted the difficulties African Americans have experienced throughout the history of the United States, as well as the current, corrupt political climate of the United States.
The show opened with dear old Uncle Sam—portrayed by the iconic Samuel L. Jackson—who started off the show by greeting the United States: “Salutations, it’s your Uncle Sam, and this is the great American game.” Throughout the show, Uncle Sam criticized Kendrick, attempting to mute his energy, claiming Kendrick was “too loud, too reckless — too ghetto!” Uncle Sam only calmed down once Kendrick performed calmer, slow paced songs—such as “All the Stars” and “Luther.” Evidently, Lamar wanted the American people to realize the unfair discrimination against African Americans—such as rhetoric which labeled African American culture as “ghetto” and “savage.” During the Reconstruction Era of the United States, many conservative Americans pushed African Americans to “assimilate” into American culture by converting to Christianity and disregarding their African American culture, and this attempt to acculturize African Americans remains prominent to this day. Kendrick’s halftime show highlights this attempt to extinguish African American values and points out the irony of attempting to suppress culture in a nation as diverse as the United States—a nation known as the Melting Pot of cultures.
Another political message in the beginning of the performance occurred when the spotlight hit Kendrick, and he stated: “40 acres and a mule, this is bigger than the music.” This statement refers to an agreement made during the Civil War of the United States which promised that newly freed African Americans would receive both a mule and 40 acres of the land they toiled over during their time as slaves once the Civil War ended. However, once the war ended, President Andrew Johnson disregarded this promise, instead bestowing the land to its pre-war white owners. This broken promise remains a stain on the history of the United States. By referencing this Civil War Era promise, Kendrick reminds American citizens that the discrimination African Americans have faced has lasted for hundreds of years, and that—unlike what Trump and his conservative supporters claim—African Americans do not, in fact, have greater rights than white Americans.
Near the end of Kendrick’s halftime show, during the performance of “Not Like Us,” the positioning of the dancers reveals the corruption of the government of the United States. The dancers were purposefully positioned so that all the dancers, except for the ones closest to the center, layed down on the ground in a pose reminiscent of death. In other words, everyone except for the inner circle were ‘dead.’ Similarly, during Trump’s inauguration, the people standing in the very front—Trump’s inner circle—were a group of billionaires, such as Elon Musk. Kendrick implies that the current government of the United States strongly favors the wealthy, and that the common masses—the outer circle—will be detrimentally impacted (left for dead) by the government under Trump.
Kendrick’s halftime performance holds many important political messages, and in this time of uncertainty and fear under the Presidency of Trump, these political messages remain extremely important; they remind Americans that the current corruption of the government cannot stand, and that to combat this corruption Americans must stick together and unite.