Would rap/hip hop/KL fans explain the Superbowl halftime show to me?

Cafe Society
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I readily admit that I’m an out-of-touch old white guy, who has never appreciated rap or hip hop (or understood the difference between the 2.) I have never really made much of an effort to understand/appreciate such music, because it just doesn’t appeal to me. A couple of years back when with a group of musicians I was suggesting my ignorance about rap was a shortcoming on my part. Another musician said, “You are allowed to ‘not like’ stuff.”

But my wife and I watch such things as the Grammys, SNL, and - yes - SB halftime shows in an attempt to at least remain minimally aware of what is currently popular.

I do not intend to put down rap or its fans. Just asking if anyone can explain what I’m missing. And I guess if the only response is, “I like it!” w ell, I realize many folk do not “like” the bluegrass and oldtime music that is my fave.

A couple of my ignorant observations to start things off:
-I tend not to be hugely into lyrics, but I couldn’t understand 99% of what he said/sang. “Tiramisu” was pretty much all I caught in the first bit. I can understand that his lyrics might be “poetic”, but can other people understand them as sung, or do you need to read the “liner notes”? (I admitted I was old! ;))
-One of my personal biases is that I appreciate skill in playing instruments. And I did not see a single instrument being played/mimed on stage. I guess I don’t understand/appreciate the vocal skills involved in what sound to me essentially talking in rhythm.
-Closely related - so much of it seemed lip-synched. In addition to the recorded backing music/rhythm, there were recorded vocals. I have appreciated listening and dancing to electronic music which does not translate well live, but is that just something that rap fans don’t care as much about? I understand writing rap takes skill, but is it as hard for someone else to imitate it as to sing like Beyonce? Or Johnny Cash? …
-Was there some message in the dancing/staging? All the people coming out of the Monte Carlo? Did that correspnd with his lyrics? At one point, it even took me a while to realize they were lined up like an American flag. Was he singing about America at that time? Who was the blonde woman on the riser? And the other guy who joined him later on? Were the dance movements - seemed like a lot of people walking in a circle - symbolic of something, or just intended to look neat - like an old Las Vegas Folies Bergere show?
-And I assume Sammy J’s interludes directly referenced the songs that followed? Because to a non-fan, the connection was unapparent.

I do not wish to yuck anyone’s yum. Yeah - I know I’ve previously expressed my ignorance on this topic. I listen to and play A LOT of music, of different styles, which I understand many folk do not appreciate or enjoy. I just do not understand/appreciate much of rap and thought yesterday’s show might provide a focal point to have my ignorance somewhat lessened. (If you think I’m singling out rap for my disfavor, I could explain how much I dislike opera! ;))

I guess I would be willing to watch/listen to a Youtube video or 2 if folk think that would be informative. But it does not really strike me that most music is something that really needs to be “studied” to be appreciated.

On edit - fighting my own ignorance. It was a Buick, not a Chevy. And I never even KNEW there was a Pulitzer in music! And I guess I have heard of SZA before. Think she was on SNL.

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You really aren’t into modern Superbowl halftime shows!

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Yeah - I guess not. :smiley: Hadn’t realized I started those 2 threads (BTW - the list of “similar threads” I was offered was REALLY WEIRD, and did not include those 2. Or anything abut Superbowls or rap music.)

I guess I ought to just acknowledge that this is something I do not understand and/or appreciate. But I feel that would make me even MORE out of touch (if that makes any sense.)

WRT halftime shows - maybe I just don’t get the whole thing. As one example, I was a BIG Prince fan back in the 80s, tho my appreciation pretty much ended with 1999. Saw him live, my band played Dirty Mind, my roommate and I edited 1999 down to a single album length which we thought “tighter”… But I didn’t appreciate his halftime show - which so many folk rave about.

I wonder if there has ever been a halftime show I thought really great…

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There’s a very good overview here:

This will explain a lot of the cultural context and artistic significance that is evidently not on your personal radar.

You don’t have to personally enjoy it, or even, really, appreciate it. But objectively, for genre cognoscenti, Kendrick Lamar is a Big Deal, and this article helps explain why.

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Here’s some perspective from a guy named Derek Harper Sr. on Facebook, that goes into a deeper explanation (and a more opinionated one, imho) than The Guardian article. I don’t know who he is. But he posted about this last night and it blew up, several of my friends have shared it.

Here’s the post on Facebook.

Now, before you say “I didn’t come here for an interpretive dance about Black people” - no, you didn’t. You presumably came for a football game. The NFL already secured your viewership. And if you didn’t come for football, you came for the commercials. And if you actually did come for the halftime show, well, they weren’t trying to get your demographic to tune in they were trying to get the GenZ kids who didn’t want to watch football or commercials. They got them. They got the guy who just happened to win a ton of Grammys the week before. He had the leverage to say “Here is my creative vision and what I’m going to present” and the NFL said “$ound$ good, Mr. Lamar.”

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I watched the Superbowl primarily to try to keep myself somewhat relevant and aware of what is popular. I’m not a fan of watching sports, and most of the ads seem aimed at someone other than me. But the entire “spectacle” is something many people watch, so I want to at least put my eyeballs on it for a couple of hours, to avoid cowering further into my little asocial rabbithole.

I wonder about the effectiveness of a “message” if it is not understandable by many listeners. I get that folk who know and appreciate KL, and who feel his lyrics and past actions speak to their interests, will appreciate the validation of seeing their concerns on such a big, general audience stage. But I am not such a person. I wonder if the “message” might have been more effective if there were some effort to make it more understandable to folk who are not already “believers.” We watched the game w/ my sister/BIL, and at one point my sister said she wished there were subtitles. (In retrospect, I wonder if we could’ve tried to enable them on the TV…)

I tend to be quite liberal in most of my political/social views. Not trying to make any other point other than that I might be sympathetic to KL’s message - IF I had been able to understand it.

I guess that strikes me as curious, that a SB halftime show would not appeal to a more general audience than “genre cognoscenti.” I have long been aware that KL is “a Big Deal.” In light of that awareness, I continue to try to understand the appeal. And I’ve known of some feud between him and Drake. But - as someone who doesn’t listen to either’s music, why should I think it anything than some stupid feud between a couple of rich entertainers?

I read a couple of articles after posting. Like I said, I’m not trying to persuade anyone else to not enjoy this show/performer/music. Just saying that it is taking considerable research for me to appreciate the message.

I DID appreciate, however, how pissed it must’ve made Trump! :wink:

From the FB post you quote. I don’t even understand what this means. I could not understand a word other than “tiramisu.” So this “explanation” sheds little light to folk who are not already fans.

Being picky - it didn’t START with that. The flag was some little while into the show. And I guess I did not appreciate that all of the dancers were Black. I had thought them of various racial/ethnic makeups.

Like I said, I tend to be liberal, and feel white middle/upper class folk like me have long had far too many advantages/privileges. So if all I need to understand is that this somehow is aimed at correcting such inequality, I guess I can say I agree with the message, even tho I don’t care for the medium.

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Here’s another one I came across while checking out the news this morning:

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There’s definitely a shift in art now with how obvious it has to be. You can be coy in your art - even on the world’s biggest stage - and expect everyone to dissect and talk about it for days, weeks and months afterwards. THAT is when the message gets out. Heck, it’s probably more effective the more mumbly and secretive it is. It really makes the people lean in.

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I’m only in my early 60s but I’ve already learned that as far as current pop culture is concerned my job isn’t to “get it”. My job is to “get out of the way.”

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Funny. Whenever I hear a type of music I don’t like, I just either ignore it, change the channel, or just listen to see what it is and move on. I don’t write long treatises asking people to explain why they like something I don’t, as if an explanation is warranted.

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I was entertained by the Kendrick Lamar halftime show. I couldn’t really understand the words, but I loved the cadence and the motion and the colors. I guess I appreciated it the same way I appreciated the Paris Olympic shows–culturally irrelevant to me, but recognizably good art.

I also like that the Superbowl is booking artists who are currently popular, instead of digging up acts from a decade or more ago.

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My father-in-law kept on saying “I can’t understand anything. Can any of you understand him? Are there actual words here?” Now, he’s a Trumper and a bit of a racist, so I suspect some of that was behind his questions/complaints. I reminded him that my parents (and he) were probably saying similar things about Nirvana and Pearl Jam, and his parents were probably saying similar things about Led Zeppelin. With each new generation, there are always gonna be old people complaining about this new-fangled music that doesn’t sound like music from when they were young.

In regard to not understanding the lyrics, I think a lot of people that are fans listen to the songs so much they learn the lyrics, and/or check lyrics websites to learn them. For me, I just like the way the music sounds even of I don’t know all the lyrics. (I did go check the lyrics to “Not Like Us” after his Grammy wins, just to see what all the hype was about. It was clever, well-written. Did I think it rose to the level of Song of the Year? Eh, what do I know?)

As 50-year-old guy, I enjoyed the show, even if I didn’t probably catch everything that was going on out there. I knew only two of the songs, but my 14-year-old daughter loved it and was busily texting with her friend the whole time. I know she only knew a couple of the songs too, but I do love watch her be a giddy teenager with regard to today’s popular artists. She kept hoping Taylor was gonna hit the stage and do “Bad Blood” with him but alas…

Yeah I think this is a good point. This wasn’t just a halftime spectacle, it was art. Like all art, some people get it, some people don’t, some people need time or explanations to better understand it, some people hate it, some people just love how it makes them feel without actually digging any deeper into the meaning. I think that people are taking about it, or asking about it, is a good thing.

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It will be interesting to see who the halftime act will be next year. I am quite certain Trump will put his thumb on the scale as much as possible. His base was very unhappy with last night:

I am sure he and his people saw thousands and thousands of tweets like this.

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I would bet on a country star for next year.

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I mean, you can talk about art and message and all that, but this is an artist with more than 42 billion song streams on Spotify alone, so he’s simply massively popular. It’s just not familiar to a bunch of us.

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I tried reading, and re-reading that quote. I don’t understand it at all. Ergo, as far as I’m concerned, it’s not remotely an explanation of anything. It seems you already have to know what it’s about to understand what it’s about.

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I was a fan of rock and punk since my youth/college days, so I never had much difficulty “appreciating” grunge. And, as I’ve said, I’ve never really put the effort into deciphering lyrics. The folk in my string band often mock me about that, that - unless I have so sing them, I don’t even listen to the lyrics by someone like Nanci Griffith or Joni Mitchell… So, like the guy told me a while back, I guess I just have to stick with, “I personally don’t like it.”

I wonder who would be similarly popular to KL these days to play the SB. As Zoobi says, possibly some country. Or Taylor Swift, Beyonce, Billie Eilish, or a pop singer like Sabrina Carpenter. I don’t care for any of them, but at least I can “understand” their music somewhat more. Somehow I suspect Trump may not lobby hard for Chappel Roan! :wink:

I readily acknowledge my preference for non-electronic instruments. I watched the first half of the Grammys (before I found the ads intolerable.) I was surprised that all of the music acts were pop/rock, rather than rap, with musicians backing the singers.

Thanks all, for engaging in this discussion.

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To your point, I think the deeper meaning explanation that the FB guy was posting was for the people making 42 billion streams of his music. Kendrick took the opportunity to reach out and grab the kids like @Happy_Lendervedder 's daughter and my nieces and say “wait stop, I’m going to remix my art a bit and add some visuals and we’re going to talk about this real deep for a moment.” Seize the moment to add a little more context for the kids who aren’t quite getting it yet, they’re just here for the beat.

And still, there will be swaths of people who came into it blindly and weren’t moved. And more swaths who know Kendrick and don’t care to follow up. But the deeper messaging is there for those who want to know more. That’s all he can do.

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I didn’t see a direct comment on this, but one of the few things I think I “got” about the show was that “Uncle Sam” was basically telling KL he was doing it wrong, that he wasn’t following the rules. At one point he explicitly told him the cost would be “one life”, I assume a reference to rappers killing each other and “they system/America” killing young black men when they break the rules.

Then after teasing that he was going to play “Not Like Us” (that section with the dancers asking “are you going to do it?”) he instead did slower songs with SZA, which “Uncle Sam” approved of (“nice and calm” or something like that).

Then he swerved again and did call out Drake and do “Not Like Us”, including having the whole crowd basically call Drake a pedophile.

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(Re-quoting part of a trumper x.com post Zoobi posted, not Zoobi themself):

I, for one, would love to see a pagan satanic cultist perform a halftime show.