Kendrick Lamar Halftime Show: The Revolution HAS been “Televised.”
Written by Jeremy "Kokugatsu" Griffin
It has been a week since the 59th Super Bowl ft. Kendrick Lamar was aired, but there are no shortage of reactions videos, fan-made animations and lyrical breakdowns out there. This half-time show was beloved by many and hated by many as well. The football game also was not much to deliver for a “Super Bowl” performance, but one thing is for certain, K-Dot’s halftime performance was one for the record books. Without further ado, let’s ZONE in on it and see what I mean.
****WARNING: SENSITIVE CONTENT WILL BE DISCUSSED****“Firstly, I know many people may not like what I have to say, but this a blog where I am free to share my opinion and research on this sensitive matter. This is my free space to exorcise my freedom of speech and though I voicing my opinion on the matter, I will only pass along facts that I have researched. Zealots of Nerd Entertainment podcast freely speak on various matters and at times, we can get a bit wild a crazy, but it is for fun and enjoyment.”
-Kokugatsu
Uncle Sam(uel Jackson) and the “shots-fired” against Trump, MAGA and the American Gov’t
Now normally musical breakdowns are Prof Tuck’s thing, but he is occupied at the moment, so let me take his place this time to break down why Uncle Sam, fantastically played by the infamous and notorious Samuel L. Jackson, was so important:
Uncle Sam feels Kendrick’s, and thus the black community’s, music is too loud and ghetto
This needs little explanation. It is not uncommon for one set of demographics to think that other’s music isn’t real music and can slander it with derogatory words. But it does go a step further. The term “Ghetto” is specifically used as this term is heavily offensive to the Black Community when used by other demographics. Ghetto is defined in the urban dictionary as “a derogatory term used towards individuals who lack the standards of manners and ethics.“ There are many other definitions and you can read them here if you like, but this encapsulates it as a whole. Merriam-Webster defines it as “characteristic of such people or such a district in a way that is suggestive of low social class.“ You can read the rest here also.
When Kendrick teased, but didn’t play “Not Like Us” at first and played slower music with SZA
Bouncing off the first point, America has always wanted to shut minorities down. This plays more than just the Black Community, although this is the man focus here, but in various different Americans who derive culture from various other countries or religions from Christianity, will get looked at in a bad way for their cultural music because the majority do not understand. I personally have walked through a grocery store and sung “Labe Igi” to my kids and get looked at as if I’m a witch or terrorist. And this is not only from the Caucasian community, but even others in the Black Community because they cannot understand that I am singing a Yorubian kids song about playing outside around a tree. When we don’t understand, we push a lot against it. America doesn’t want to hear “Not Like Us” again. We should stay in our lane and play the simple music that is nice to dance to, not free our minds right? Kendrick teased it and Uncle Sam played right into it.
Deducting 1 life for an overly loud performance
In short, the gov’t takes a life away for not falling into line. You are loosing your chances. There are many times when the community comes together to combat tyranny, and it usually leads to a person dying. This one was my favorite, because there are so many parallels here to make. This performance is a complete diss to Drake, but also a shot at the hate the gov’t has for the Black Community. Know what other song was a Drake diss and a shot at the gov’t for its hate of the Black Community? “This is America” by Childish Gambino. If you cannot see the parallels, don’t worry, we will break it down further in our podcasts. We will definitely be discussing this in our Nerdy News Special and Prof Tuck and I will do a full breakdown on our next Nerd Talk video on YouTube, so you will have 2 chances to really see what it going on.
“That’s what the people want…don’t mess this up-”[making it seem as if he was playing “The Great American Game]
Taking a step back to the tease, Uncle Sam finally thought Kendrick was going to play the game according to his rule again, but Kendrick proved otherwise. Notice how Lamar responds to the “That’s what the people want.” with a “40 acres and a mule, this is more than just about the music.” If you do not know, that was what the African American freed slaves were promised with their freedom, with vast majority not receiving what the gov’t promised them.
The Great American Game: Football vs Life in the United States
Just like Kendrick, I’ve teased this “Great American Game,” but actually is it? First off, let’s address the fact that it is not only Samuel L. Jackson that plays the role of Uncle Sam by name alone, but because he is Samuel L. Jackson: A Black Man who speaks his peace. One of the biggest things Jackson is famous for his speaking his truth in a way that most feel is, well, ghetto. A YouTuber and animator that I follow, AceVane, in one of his videos talked about how Jackson uses cuss words in almost all of his interviews and has to constantly be *bleeped* out. He is a great actor and many people like him, but him representing Uncle Sam, the physical embodiment of America? It makes you question who is the current face of America right now who does some of the same things, but does not get called ghetto himself, but that is neither here nor there.
But now back into it, the “game” refers to 2 main points: 1. Football - The Great American Game that the United States is known for that is derived from the British rugby. 2. Life in America - The Great American “Life” Game that US citizens have to play day by day with the gov’t and the rich making the rules. Clearly the second is the main point here. Americans play the game of life, and if you have not played that board game before, you may have wound up missing out and not understanding the message. In the board game you pick your character and are gifted a vehicle. you go through the game by spinning a wheel to go certain spaces and then stop at crucial life points. You get chance cards, that you cannot control (a very important part of this game and life in general), that either help you or can send you into crippling bankruptcy. You can choose to go to college and start life in debt with hopes that you can turn things around as you have more career options, but just like in “life,” those chances may not come to you. This reference is a crippling analogy, especially when you add in that Monopoly, another great game extremely popular in the US makes light of the fact that having a monopoly benefits the rich but hurts the common people, especially the minorities.
The American Flag in “Humble”
The American flag is made up of all African American Individuals and is split down he middle. Many will argue that the African American and Native Americans are who built the foundation for the United States, while others are oppressors who overtook what was built as their own. At times, the American flag starts to resemble the Confederate Flag of Oppression. Many individuals felt that the Confederate Flag was a symbol of heritage, but can you really call it heritage if it was made to glorify the oppression and assault of other individuals?
Cheat Code of Life
This one was a great reference as at the beginning of the show, the Game Board (the football stadium field), plays a cheat code that is actually used across multiple games and has different meanings. I will discuss the fan theories later on, but for now, Uncle Sam was upset that Kendrick put in “The Cheat Code for Life.” Life is often unfair and especially so for the African American Community. It is still expected that most African Americans will not be able to make a good living outside of drugs and gang related lifestyles. It was recently proven by several Black Content Creators and doctors that many of the medicines and treatment plans out there do not work to properly help or diagnose those with more melanin and darker skin tones. Life is unfair, but the “Cheat Code” helps give usa fighting chance; but how? Either way, Uncle Sam was very unpleased that the scales were tipping.
TV Off and “GAME OVER”
This hits 2 points with one being Drake, but the other also being against the American Gov’t. Turn the “TV Off” to stop being brainwashed by the media and the lies fed by the radical gov’t and GAME OVER as Kendrick played “The American Game” and won. By turning off the TV, he finally beat the game and freed himself from the brainwashing to live his life as he chooses and not conform to what Uncle Sam wanted him to do.
The Setting
Kendrick did a fantastic job using the entirety of the football stadium to showcase his craft. here are the environments and what they meant to many fans:
Game Board
This one is most fun as many people saw this in many different lights:
PS Game board
The most common was a game board representing Playstation. This console is a majority favorite of the African American Community as many games that are most popular are NBA, NBA: Street, Tekken, Street Fighter, Grand Theft Auto and of course NFL series. The X’s, O’s and Squares are a great representation as our very own Sebby Phantom called the theme as “Playing Games in These Streets.”
Squid Game
This was the second most popular opinion as the same X’s, O’s and Squares are major representations in the popular Netflix Show Squid Game, where individuals have to play with their literal lives to either make enough money to buy themselves and their families out of debt or die trying while entertaining big corporate business who bid on who lives and who does not.. Funny enough, I did mention about debt and big businesses earlier didn’t I?
Dance Dance Revolution
This was not as popular, but became more interesting after the infamous “GAME OVER“ message. Don’t worry, we are definitely going to talk about that later. The squares looked like a Dance Pad from the popular game and many took it to represent “dancing and entertaining the general public.
The Prison Yard
When you live life on the streets, it goes one of 2 ways: Death or Prison. The prison yard is a great representation as “things go down on the yard.” On the yard they danced and entertained the public. We got to see different choreography and a variety of colors representing not just America, but the different gang sects as well. The “Juneteeth Pop out Concert” was a huge growth in the American community as we got to see rival “ghetto” gangs who would otherwise kill each other, get on stage to dance and party together. Many of Black Male Americans have a high expectation to be put into the prison system and few reform or get the opportunity. Many Black citizens have little chance to make a decent life and tend to rely on gangs, crime or the selling of drugs to stay alive another day. The symbol of the yard is a big shot in the face of America and how reform needs to happen to help America have unity again.
The Cheat Code
“Triangle, X, Square, Triangle, Circle, X, Square, Circle, Square , Triangle, X, Circle”
Although the code is not as famous as the Konami Code, as I mentioned earlier, this code can truly break down in different ways, whether intentional or not. Then again we are talking about Kendrick Lamar, so at least one of these is intentional:
GTA Armor and Ammunition Load Up/Explosive Punch
This code is famous amongst the GTA (Grand Theft Auto) fanbase as this code is present in multiple of the games. GTA also fitting the theorized theme presented by Sebby Phantom of “Playing Gamed in these streets.” Many fans theorize that Kung-fu Kenny wants his fans and followers to armor-up and be ready for the “televised” revolution he spoke of.
Jurassic Park 59 Lives Code
At first I thought this was a stretch when people online said it, but then I paid attention. This code gives you 59 lives at the start of the level, but it happens very specifically. You put in the code once, and it turns off the music (music tuned off during the performance when the code was put in), you put it in a second time, it gives you 59 additional lives (second time in music began again). Piggy-backing off of the 1 life deduction from Uncle Sam we have 60-1=59. 59th Super Bowl, and 59 lives. I don’t know if this was intentional, but some fans put connections together better than magnets and this one is seeming kind of true.
“Not Like Us”
It was amazing to see Serena out there dancing with “Not Like Us” playing especially considering she was harassed for the same dance 12 years ago. We all know that this song is a direct shot at Drake (to which there is a quick update: he dropped his latest collab album to mixed, but mostly negative reviews), but this song also took a shot at the officials with the American Gov’t. As mentioned previously, before singing the sing, K-Dot collaborated with the female back-up singers to mention “40 acres and mule. This is about more than the just music,” which jabs hard to the fact that many Black citizens have yet to receive the promise that was given. Lamar also spent quite a bit of time not looking directly into the camera, until he mentioned Drakes name (A photo of this at the start of this blog :D). This being the same point he proved in the music video when he stared directly into the camera at about the same time in the song. The dancers in the field gloriously choreographed the separations that exist among us and how much better we would be together to fight against the tyranny of those who are “not like us.” Many of the rich and wealthy cannot begin to fathom the struggles and hurdles that poor managed to push through.
Many, many US citizens fight back and forth about the performance and this truly shows that we are unalike; however, our differences can unite us better if we learn to mold ourselves into understanding each other. Here are some tweets of many people’s views of the performance:
But of course, there are some things society should never accept as it will always keep up divided or could potentially harm ourselves and others whether it be physically and/or emotionally.
Conclusion
As much as I could go on and on about this performance, this is something that has to be experienced. Much like a lot of Kendrick’s performances, songs and music videos, you have to watch it more than once. You know as I like to say, watch once for fun and twice for analysis. Once you have seen is a second time, watch it again through another’s point of view. I love watching other’s reaction videos as I also make my own. Many content creators can find and point out things that others may miss and this is a beautiful thing as this also can point out our differences to paint a bigger picture as a whole. After this performance I leave you with this:
“The revolution was televised and changes needs to be made. If we are to unite all people in our nation, we need to fix the issues that we cause. They are not like us, so we need people like us to represent us and keep things fair and equal.”
-Kokugatsu 2025
We clearly have much more to dive in about, but we will save that for our podcast. With that my friends, we are ZONEing out.
****UPDATE!!****
Dave Free did an interview with The Wall Street Journal about the Halftime performance as he goes further into breaking down the performance. You can read it HERE if you have an account with them.
All images belong to the NFL/NFL Super Bowl association. This blog is for pure entertainment purposes only. Zealots of Nerd Entertainment and authors there-of use these blogs as a safe space to express their thoughts on subject matters.