Kendrick Lamar’s Super Bowl LIX half-time performance was a nationally televised political statement concerning racial inequality in the United States. Demonstrated by everything from Samuel L. Jackson’s portrayal of Uncle Sam to Lamar’s referencing of Gil Scott-Heron’s “The Revolution Will Not Be Televised”.
Everything from the set list to the comments made in between songs were meant to send a message to the American people. However, behind Kendrick Lamar’s lyrics and stage presence is the backdrop of which the performance takes place: the stage, the set pieces and the function of the dancers.
With the performance about to begin, the lights in the background have numbers going up to 100, resembling a loading screen. When the lights come up on Lamar and the 1987 Buick GNX, the lights spell out, “START.” In the corners of the stage are the shapes of an X, a triangle, a square and a circle, resembling the buttons to a PlayStation controller. At the very beginning, the stage is also lit up in grids like a tic-tac-toe board. The elements of a game are presented in the background to further establish that for the performers onstage, as well as minorities in America, being here is a game with rules that they must follow.
With more bird’s-eye shots of the stage, the camera picks up on the long, rectangular portion of the stage that is designed to resemble a prison yard, with the lights doubling as lamp posts and high-beam security lights, demonstrating the number of Black Americans who are incarcerated compared to white Americans.
The dancers begin to take on a more symbolic role in “Humble.” The dancers, who are all dressed in either red, white or blue, form an American flag that is split down the middle, Lamar performing in between that split. The division of the American flag symbolizes the cultural and political divide found within the United States. The political right and the left have become more polarized with every election, with the rift only growing more apparent following the conclusion of the 2025 election and subsequent election of Donald Trump.
The lights behind the stage come back to spell out, “WARNING WRONG WAY” as the trumpets of “Euphoria” sound. Kendrick Lamar wrote “Euphoria” as a diss track against Drake with whom he has had a lengthy public conflict with. The lights are synonymous with warnings a game would give when the player goes somewhere they should not be, maintaining the video game theme. The other singers begin the chastising of Lamar, warning that performing “Euphoria” as an act of aggression is wrong — that asserting himself, taking up space, is going the wrong way. That message is further cemented when Jackson’s portrayal of Uncle Sam says, “No, no, no! Too loud, too reckless, too ghetto. Mr. Lamar! Do you really know how to play the game? Then tighten up!” The “wrong way” is stepping out of line and refusing to conform.
The performance flows into “Man at the Garden,” where the dancers come back to tell a story. A handful of dancers are sitting at one of the light posts, casually hanging out while Lamar raps. At the very end, those dancers run away and Uncle Sam walks into frame. Then he says, “Score-keeper; deduct one life.” In the context of the number, these dancers were not doing anything that warrants a life being taken away, nor were they doing anything that they should be worried about being caught in the act of. Police violence in Black communities are prominent, from the Rodney King beating in 1992 to the death of George Floyd in 2020, and everything before, in between and following. People who were not doing anything wrong have still been arrested, beaten and antagonized by police for decades, if not centuries, in the United States, which is what those dancers are representing.
Later on, during the song, “Peekaboo,” Lamar is in the “X” set piece in the corner of the stage. Behind him, flowing into the X, are the background dancers in white. In the dim lightning outside of the X, the dancers who are not in white are banging on the clear walls and are not allowed to come in, creating an inner circle of white dancers only being allowed in. The narrative here is that white Americans consistently have more opportunities and open doors than those who are not white. It could also reference the double standard of immigration, where the rhetoric around European immigrants aligns with the American Dream, whereas Black and Brown immigrants are treated like criminals and undesirables. The idea of an inner circle comes back during “Not Like Us,” when every other dancer drops except for a ring of a few dancers in white. Even some of the white dancers fall to the ground with the others, highlighting that only a select few white Americans, most likely those in the upper class, are allowed to succeed. The rest of the population is pushed down by lobbied politics and large corporations.
The final notable moment brought by the backup dancers comes from a moment that was untelevised for the most part. During “TV Off,” a group of dancers in black emerge from the car and hold up a flag in honor of Gaza and Sudan. Due to this moment being unplanned, security detained the dancer holding the flag. At this point, the music has gotten louder and more politically charged. Lamar is outwardly speaking on the injustices done to the people of Gaza and Sudan, and it is not hidden behind any clever symbolism; it is in the audience’s faces and it cannot be ignored. One last bleeped out curse word from lamar sends the stage into a blackout, save for the lights spelling out, “GAME OVER,” which means that he refused to conform and lost the game, breaking rules that are only reserved for the people the country wants to keep silent the most.
