Captivating. Prophetic. Surgical. Motivated. All of these are words that Kendrick Lamar’s Halftime Show 59 has been praised as. Whilst on the other hand, there is an enormous amount of criticism. Ghetto, talentless, mumble rap, nationalist, all words used to describe that same show, but by a completely different demographic, “White America.” Controversial or not, people aren’t getting the message.
Kendrick Lamar, the 22 time Grammy award and Pulitzer prize winner, is using his platform to tell a story about American politics, and what we can do to get ourselves out of a hole that we dug ourselves in. Lamar’s performance starts with the introduction of Samuel L. Jackson as ‘Uncle Sam’, who welcomes you to “The Great American Game.”
The first song Kendrick plays is ‘Body’, the teaser for his most recent album, GNX. After his first song starts to fade, Dot says, ”You picked the right time but the wrong guy.” Meaning that we picked the right time to rebel against the power and the rich, and try to change what governs us, but we chose the wrong person to lead us, pointing to Donald Trump (who was surprisingly in attendance) and explaining how bad his election was at this time. This statement alone sets the stage for the rest of the performance.
Kendrick then flips to the song “squabble up” saying that it’s going to be a fight in order for us to get what we believe in. Uncle Sam (Jackson) reappears to call Kendrick’s performance “ghetto” and to “tighten up” almost in a confused way, as Kendrick is also wealthy. Showing his dedication to keeping our society together, Dot plays “Humble” followed by “DNA” showing that although he is rich, this is him being humble, and that it’s in his DNA to be as he is. But wait! He interrupts DNA with ‘euphoria’ because he realized something. Then he plays “man at the garden” , dipping into his consciousness, saying that he is great, speaking about his self worth and telling the audience that we should also have self confidence and find our worth wherever we can, but we can’t all be the man at the garden.
Kendrick performs this song with his “homies” and Uncle Sam comes out disappointed, critiquing that it was a “cultural cheat code,” he then tells the scorekeeper to deduct one life. Or in other words, kill one of Kendrick’s “homies.”
There are many more points of interest in Lamar’s concert, notably his american flag of dancers, the double entendre of his “a” chain, pretty much all of “Not Like Us” being a cultural battle and a diss track, as well as performing all of this at the biggest sporting event of the nation. Lamar isn’t like every other rapper from Compton California, he is one of the greatest rappers of all time. Lamar’s lyricism is by far the most captivating of this generation. Lamar’s point in all of this is to bring attention to the black mark in America today before it’s too late, and the best way to do this is through the younger generations.
