Super Bowl halftime present bulletins are usually met with both pleasure or derision, hype or apathy. It’s a 13-minute present on America’s greatest stage that, barring particular events, just one artist can headline—it’s unimaginable to make all people joyful. But the announcement this previous weekend that Kendrick Lamar will play Super Bowl LIX’s halftime present subsequent February has produced an unprecedented mushroom cloud of cultural infighting, debate, and long-simmering disdain.
The massive sport is about to go down in February in New Orleans; there are those that consider that, given the location, Louisiana’s personal Lil Wayne ought to have been supplied the alternative to placed on a hometown-hero set, the approach Dr. Dre and Snoop Dogg did again in 2022 when the halftime present passed off in Inglewood. Complicating issues is the involvement of Jay-Z, who entered right into a partnership with the NFL again in 2019 that features producing the halftime present, and has subsequently develop into—pretty or not—the de facto face of the decision-making course of. Jay-Z is a lightning rod for discourse on his personal; issue in Kendrick and his beef with Drake, plus Drake’s alliances with figures who've their very own points with Jay-Z and/or Kendrick, and we mainly have a civil warfare brewing, throughout a 13-minute manufacturing quantity throughout a soccer sport.
At press time, Jay-Z hasn’t addressed any of this. Wayne went on IG Live to specific his heartbreak over being apparently handed over, thanking the followers however making no point out of Kendrick or Jay both approach.
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Below, we break down the geopolitical ramifications of one seemingly innocuous Super Bowl halftime present reserving, and the 20-odd years of rap historical past driving all of these outsized reactions.
Jay-Z, Wayne, Birdman, and “tortious interference”
The two Carters have a sophisticated historical past, to make sure. The abridged model is that Wayne has all the time been an outspoken Jay-Z fan, citing Jigga’s music as a significant affect throughout the interval when he leveled up from his Hot Boys period to go on an inventive run that would go away him as a reputable contender for Best Rapper Alive, at one level even rapping “Best rapper alive since the best rapper retired.” But hip-hop is a aggressive sport: in the end, being the GOAT means shelling out with deference. When Jay ended his short-lived retirement proper as Wayne was turning into a supernova in 2006, Wayne gave an incendiary, instant-classic interview to Complex. “I’m better than [Jay-Z],” he mentioned. “I don’t like what he’s saying about how he had to come back because hip-hop’s dead and we need him. What the fuck do you mean?” A pair months earlier, Wayne jacked the beat for Jay’s massive comeback single “Show Me What You Got;” the consensus was he destroyed it. Many years later, throughout Wayne’s look on the podcast Drink Champs, Jay revealed by way of a textual content to the present’s host N.O.R.E. that when Wayne scooped him on the “Show Me What You Got” beat, it was a sobering second. “I had to take a long walk,” Jay mentioned, “and look at myself in the mirror. I said, ‘Are you sure you still got this?’”
It didn’t have to be that approach although. Wayne, who has lyrics from Jay’s “Lucky Me” tatted on his physique, nearly made his reverence full circle by signing with Jay in 2005. Jay confirmed this in a 2013 interview with the Breakfast Club, revealing that the deal by no means got here to fruition as a result of of Cash Money label boss Birdman, Wayne’s father determine. Since he and Jay had a previous relationship, Jay gave him a courtesy name to let him know conversations have been occurring which then led to a letter from Birdman’s authorized illustration citing—in Jay’s phrases—”tortiurous interference.”
Around 2007, cooler heads briefly prevailed, after just a few minor subliminals had been traded. Wayne apologized for his feedback and by the finish of that 12 months, he and Jay collaborated on the latter’s new album. That vitality continued into 2008, the place they labored collectively on “Swagga Like Us” and extra notably, “Mr. Carter,” a observe that's meta-textually all about their wholesome competitors to be the finest.
