More viewers have listened to Watch Kendrick Lamar – 133.5 million people – than any other part -time show of the Super Bowl. And they attended a concert led by an artist winning Grammy Grammy (as well as a winning artist). But there were many more exposed, if you knew where to look for it.
Mr. Lamar provided a spectacle in layers of cultural and political allusions, encoded and percolating through a propulsive rap, 13 minutes of deep protest art which forced me to cheerfully shout at my TV in response to the audacity that I testified. With the multiple facets symbolism that takes place in front of me, I felt obliged to break the shiny complexities. Here is my point of view:
The performance began with an air shot from the dark football field illuminated by alternating symbols: a square, a circle, a triangle and an X.
More than a few people have noted the wink to the masks worn by the guards in the South Korean dystopian drama “Squid Game”, in which the poor contribute to a series of sadistic games. When I saw the symbols for the first time, with many others, I thought of the buttons of the PlayStation controller.
The two references indicate a main vanity for the premise of Mr. Lamar: the gamification of the elusive American dream, which for too many has become the “delayed dream”, as in the poem of Langston Hughes “Harlem”.
Mr. Lamar doubled on the theme of gamification when he struck: “Forty acres and a mule, it’s bigger than music. Yeah, they tried to fuck the game, but you can’t simulate the influence. “He was doing a nuanced job: talking, yes, of his beef with Drake, which led to his successful song” Not like “, but also to extend the metaphor to instill America and the white hegemonic power.
By citing “40 acres”, Mr. Lamar alluded to ordinance No. 15, a promise to allocate some 400,000 acres of land belonging to Confederates to former black slaves. The promise was broken when Andrew Johnson, Lincoln’s successor, spilled the order in 1865.
Then, Samuel L. Jackson appeared disguised as patriotism personified: the character of propaganda of military recruitment of Uncle Sam, shouting as a carnival shelter, “This is the big American game!”
Throughout the satirical performance, Mr. Jackson expressed criticism from Mr. Lamar, resembling another uncle: the uncle Tom of “Uncle Tom’s Cabin”, striving to appease, master and Dilute Mr. Lamar’s message. At one point, Mr. Jackson reprimanded Mr. Lamar, declaring his performance “too noisy, too reckless, too ghetto”.
For me, it was a severe reminder of several injustices – like the horrible murder of Jordan Davis, 17, on November 23, 2012. Jordan was shot by a 45 -year -old white man, Michael Dunn, in a service station in a Service station in Jacksonville, Florida, after playing what Mr. Dunn called his “rap shit” too noisy.
He also recalled Sandra Bland, who refused to put his phone away during a traffic stop in 2015, declaring that she had the right to record the interaction. A dispute broke out between her and a state soldier, who pulled his paralyzing pistol and shouted, “I will enlighten you. To go out. NOW.” Ms. Bland was forced on the ground and arrested.
The Texas Ministry of Public Security said that it “became argumentative and not very cooperative” during the arrest – too noisy, too reckless.
Three days later, Ms. Bland was found dead in her prison cell.
The character of Mr. Jackson also recalled his role as a narrator, Dolmedes, in “Chi-Raq” by Spike Lee, as well as the slave of the Traitor Stephen in “Django Unchained”. But I couldn’t help but think of the historical context of the Ménestrels shows, burnt cork coated on the face of white actors, because they played lazy and black face characters for the white audience. Mr. Jackson echoed and parodia these caricatures in his top of the navy dotted with stars and stripes, recalling a different Spike Lee film, “Bamboozled”, “ On the history of the Ménestrels. The name of Mr. Lee’s production company? Forty acres and a mule.
In Mr. Lamar’s show – or, rather his game of a game with the game – the figure of Uncle Sam assumes the role of high status interlocutorA common character in the tradition of the Ménestrels, which facilitates dialogue among the other artists and serves as a ceremonial master. Mr. Jackson played Uncle Sam with a nod to those of us who got the joke – a break in the fourth wall for those of us who live on the sidelines, actively threatened by this current administration.
We know that Mr. Jackson knows what Mr. Lamar knows: we are not only passive spectators. Mr. Lamar speaks to us directly, but in code. “Not like us” no longer concerns Drake. It is a dissolved track for America, a daring indictment delivered as a rallying hymn designed to unite and revive our tired and burned reserves.
This has perfectly set up the most resonating image of the half-time show: an American living flag embodied by black dancers in red, white and blue, a reminder of the backs that built this country against their will, with Mr. Lamar located in the center. Ra recaden the threat of a black man in a hooded sweatshirt through a powerful iconography, depicting what freedom can look like, instead of what we usually see on our television screens: black or broken black bodies, exploited like pejorative tropes. It was an American symbolism through the lens of daring and shameless darkness.
Kendrick Lamar is the ultimate thread of his Céline boot cutting jeans, going beyond the problematic American game using the lexicon of the distribution of rap beef, by weaving his coded messages for the planned public who most needed these camouflaged figures . He’s like Harriet Tubman imitate the hoe The owl barred as a driver on the underground railway, guiding the researchers of freedom far from detection and danger.
But nothing could overcome the way I shouted the meaning of seeing Serena Williams “CRIP walks“During” Not like Us “by Mr. Lamar, recovering black joy. Not only did he celebrate Compton, the City of the County of Los Angeles where Ms. Williams grew up, but she recovered the joy that was armed against her after celebrating her gold medal from the 2012 London Olympic Games with a crip promenade Three seconds, unleashed an attack on the undulation of the racist commentary and a new Fox title“Serena Flubs Crown of the moment”.
Why the ways we celebrate our victories must be mocked and condemned? Why do our successes have to adapt to the comfort zone of people who do not appreciate or recognize our humanity? Why should our resilient joy be put in cage? Ms. Williams answered each of these questions through a black dance with great confidence, taking up what should have been her glorious moment 13 years ago.
After looking at this 13 -minute performance, I realized that, although I cannot stop the current assault on discouraging news, I have an agency. I can turn off the television – which was Mr. Lamar’s last command to viewers, using his hand to mimic a remote control against us. The action echoes his statement at the start of his performance, while he knelt above a Buick GNX: “the revolution” to televise being televised. You have chosen the right time, but the bad guy.
This mutiné slogan responded and was an inversion of Gil Scott-Heron’s song in 1971 “The Revolution will not be a televised”, which, according to his biographer Marcus Baram, Mr. Scott-Heron wrote in part to emphasize “The disconnection between consumerism has celebrated on television with the demonstrations that occur in the streets of America.” Mr. Lamar overturned the meaning of these famous words during this radical television performance – ending with an alarm clock intended to remind us that we have control and controller, in our hands. We have the tools of resistance and revolution at our disposal.
The transgressive joy of Kendrick Lamar could well be the antidote of political exhaustion and apathy, which is most obvious in the viral image of him wearing a rear hat, largely smiling, looking directly at the camera, dripping of diamonds, release maximum. This ecstatic expression meant something deeper than a quarrel for me.
I turned off my TV, watching the black vacuum on the screen, buzzing with what I had witnessed. Texts have spread by friends with a multitude of exclamation points, all in admiration, inspired and enlightened. I played Mr. Lamar’s song “Squabble Up” and I started dancing in my living room by myself, the first time I allowed myself to feel inhibit and reassured in 2025. I did not know What point I was breathless. My inflexible body – a tight fist since the inauguration.
There were, of course, dozens of other references, echoes and allusions in the show. If you don’t catch them or don’t understand them all, it’s ok. For those of us who did it, we received the message, Kendrick Lamar. We heard you. We saw you – strong and clear and abundantly black.
They can try to erase us. But we will not be moved.
Tiana Clark is a poet that teaches creative writing at Smith College and is the author of the next collection “Scorcroced Earth”.
High credits: Photo illustration of the New York Times; Source photography: Doug Mills / The New York Times; NFL; Park Youngkyu / Netflix, via the Everett collection; CJ Gunther / EPA, via Shutterstock; Weinstein Company
Times is determined to publish A diversity of letters to the publisher. We would like to hear what you think or one of our articles. Here are some advice. And here is our email: letters@nytimes.com.
Follow the New York Times opinion section on Facebook,, Instagram,, Tiktok,, Bluesky,, Whatsapp And Threads.