Although the tight competition between the Los Angeles Rams and the Cincinnati Bengals was the main attraction on Sunday night, one of the highlights of Super Bowl LVI was undoubtedly the 2022 Halftime Show. Three years after the culturally out-of-tune Atlanta Halftime Show that featured Maroon 5 as headliners, the Roc Nation-produced event brought viewers to a full-fledged Hip-Hop concert, led by Dr. Dre and a handful of his most notable protégés and collaborators. And it was one hell of a show.
The halftime festivities kicked off with Dr. Dre emerging from the top of a massive all-white house as the instrumental to “The Next Episode” started to fill SoFi Stadium, and just moments after the crowd showered the legendary producer with applause, Snoop Dogg had everyone’s heads bobbing as he performed his classic verse from the record. Snoop and Dre soon met in the middle of the massive set to perform “California Love,” and immediately after, viewers were treated with a surprise guest performance from 50 Cent. While his recreation of the “In Da Club” music video likely flew over many young fans’ heads, the excitement that 50’s cameo created was palpable. Once Mary J. Blige took over from there to perform the Dr. Dre-produced “Family Affair” and her 2001 hit single “No More Drama,” it was clear that this Super Bowl Halftime Show was unlike any other that Hip-Hop fans had witnessed before. From Snoop Dogg being in extreme Crip mode to the fact that four Hip-Hop and R&B legends had already taken the stage just halfway through the show, it was already shaping up to be one for the books.
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An uncontrollable excitement had been established during this year’s halftime spectacle, but once the show shifted to Kendrick Lamar’s “m.A.A.d. city”/“Alright” medley, fans were reminded that the Super Bowl Halftime Show is still an NFL-sanctioned event. In fact, viewers were made aware of that on two separate occasions during Kendrick Lamar’s solo performance. The first reminder came at the start of “m.A.A.d. City,” when the classic chant “If Pirus and Crips all got along” was heavily censored to block out any mention of either gang. While the decision to censor that line took a little steam out of K. Dot’s intro, it wasn’t necessarily a bad call given the fact that no corporation would likely feel comfortable name-dropping two of the most notorious gangs on one of the most-watched broadcasts of the year. However, as previously stated, Snoop Dogg didn’t seem to care about that rule in the slightest, as he proudly chucked up his C’s throughout the show and yelled “Crip” during his performance of “The Next Episode.” Despite that strange — and admittedly funny — disconnect between Snoop Dogg and Kendrick Lamar, the second reminder of the NFL’s longstanding attitude about racism and injustice came during Kendrick Lamar’s performance of “Alright,” and that one was significantly harder to stomach.
After powering through “m.A.A.d city” and the first verse of “Alright,” the To Pimp A Butterfly artist butchered one of his most infamous and most relatable lines: “Nigga, and we hate po-po/Wanna kill us dead in the street fo sho'.” Instead, Kendrick rapped, “We hate…Wanna kill us dead in the street fo sho.” For viewers unfamiliar with the Compton-bred artist’s catalog, the censoring of “po-po” likely didn’t even stand out to them. However, for Hip-Hop fans who have thoroughly studied Kendrick Lamar’s work, hearing K. Dot refrain from rapping “po-po” hurt. Sure, the drummer — whether it was Anderson .Paak or one of the other percussionists on-stage — did deliver two loud hits in its place, but in the midst of such as important historical moment for Hip-Hop, Kendrick’s brief silence was deafening. On one hand, Kendrick has ridiculed Fox Reporters Eric Bolling & Kimberly Guilfoyle in the past for slamming that line — and in turn, reducing a traumatizing Black experience — on live television, as evidenced by his Damn intro track “Blood.” But beyond Kendrick Lamar’s legacy or personal motives behind not rapping the word “po-po” on Sunday night, that unnecessary censorship hurts even more in February. During Black History Month, Black Future Month, or whatever you wish to call it. And just weeks after the highly publicized and scrutinized police shooting of 22-year-old Amir Locke in Minneapolis.
While Kendrick Lamar’s decision to refrain from saying “and we hate po-po” during an event hosted by the same sports organization that blackballed Colin Kaepernick for similarly speaking up about police brutality will undoubtedly be a topic of debate for weeks, months, and years to come, this essay isn’t meant to criticize the “family ties” artist or any of his fellow performers from Sunday night. It just has to be said that instances like these hurt. Black culture was being touted as top-tier entertainment throughout the Super Bowl LVI Halftime Show, yet when Black Hip-Hop fans, and Black viewers in general, could have benefitted from hearing the unfiltered version of Kendrick Lamar’s now-timeless protest anthem to help cope with the ongoing trauma of seeing another Black person slain by police over the internet, they got two drum hits. The situation is reminiscent of a line from Macklemore — of all people — on 2016’s “White Privilege II,” in which the controversial Seattle-bred rapper said, “We take all we want from black culture, but will we show up for black lives?”
So regardless of whether the censorship of “po-po” is a reflection of the NFL’s strict censorship over artists, a decision independently made by Kendrick Lamar, or the byproduct of an extremely criticized partnership between the NFL and Jay-Z’s Roc Nation, it doesn’t matter — moments like that are painful. Now, whenever Black fans remember what was otherwise a phenomenal Super Bowl Halftime Show, we’ll remember the stacked line-up of Dr. Dre, Snoop Dogg, 50 Cent, Mary J. Blige, Kendrick Lamar, and Eminem as well as the untimely butchering of one of Kendrick Lamar’s most uplifting songs.