Beyonce and Bruno Mars saved the day yesterday, as Coldplay seemed to be devoid of all groove despite the multi-platinum, international superstars performing at a spectacle straddled along the fault lines of race, sex, and economic inequality. For all the bluster, the outrage swirling around the city of San Francisco dedicating $5 million dollars to host the game, there were talks of tent cities, rampant homelessness, and housing shortages affecting the citizens of the Bay. The effects of gentrification are well-documented, though drastically underestimated, and San Francisco’s situation is no different. No doubt. And, somehow, Beyonce seemed to be representative of all that angst. She wore black leather clad in gold regalia like bullets strapped to her chest, and she used the games to promote her newest song “Formation,” whose video featured her on top of a police car sinking below the waters.
The messages were all in her visuals. From the “stop shooting us” adorning a graffitied wall to a cover of Martin Luther King Jr., with the headline “Not Just A Dreamer,” the video lit up the Saturday before the Bowl. Then the performance brought grit to the game itself. Social media was filled with Beyonce’s dancers, afro’d out and proud, holding signs demanding justice for Mario Woods. And then in formation, if you will, posed in afros and berets, seemingly in solidarity with the Black Panthers. Hers, though, wasn’t the only allusion to straight up Hip Hop. Bruno Mars came decked out in Run-DMC-styled black leather outfits with gold chains. Their routine was also filled with old-school Hip Hop references. I swear I saw a gaggle of 90s moves get done up there in parallel to Queen Bey hitting the whip and the milly rock. But there was no actual rap in sight. Rap that has spoken to these issues, sometimes unabashedly, for just about the last 30 years.
The Super Bowl has had rappers up there, before, though rarely in leading roles. No one will forget Nicki Minaj and Cee Lo astride Madonna at Super Bowl XLVI. Nor can we forget Puff Daddy performing “Mo Money Mo Problems” and “Diddy” before the “nipplegate” debacle at Super Bowl XXXVIII. Or even the Black Eyed Peas performance from the 2011 game or Queen Latifah’s singing performance at the 1998 celebration of Motown. But none of these great artists were up there to perform as emcees.
This past year, I could think of at least three emcees that would have garnered an equal amount of attention to the game. K. Dot’s To Pimp a Butterflywould have done the fractured city of San Francisco some justice, as he too took to the top of a police car in typical fashion. Drake, whose T-Mobile commercial was probably the best of the evening, has a bag of audience friendly hits he could have spun out at a moment’s notice. And then there’s one of the most creative and electrifying performers that we have right now in any form of music in Kanye West. That’s just to name a few.
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So how long will we have to wait for a true-blue rap halftime show? This year’s performance largely showed that the audience of other-worldly acts like Beyonce and Bruno Mars are more than receptive to Hip Hop themes out of their artists. Especially as Beyonce spits lines like “Y’all haters corny with that Illuminati mess” and “My daddy Alabama, Momma Louisiana / You mix that negro with that Creole make a Texas Bama” as well as the unforgettable “I like my baby hair, with baby hair and afros / I like my Negro nose with Jackson 5 nostrils.” Especially, as well, as Bruno Mars celebrates Hip Hop’s pioneers and Trinidad James hears coins fall every time he sees “Uptown Funk” performed. Let’s not forget Paris, also, who’s often called the straight up Black Panther of Hip Hop.
When will it be? I guess I’ll have to wait until next year for that TDE halftime show.
