Kendrick Lamar is America’s newest version of A Complete Unknown.
So hilarious to hear so many fellow white people who have been in awe of what Bob Dylan did at the Newport Folk Festival in 1965 now complain of what just happened at Superbowl 2025.
Or dismiss it as so many are doing. One post on social media used the tongue-in-cheek meme “Marked Safe From,” as he put it, “whatever message was supposedly delivered…” A response landed immediately: “That’s because you were the subject, not the student.” From bullshit to bullseye!
This includes white folks my age who recall when Dylan electrified the folk world in both senses of the word, and those younger who just learned the details in the current film. Makes me wonder if Lamar thought of the analogy before casting Samuel L. Jackson in the would-be-moderator’s role of Pete Seeger. Or if he may have hummed Strike another match and start anew/ It’s all over now, Baby Blue before choosing “TV Off” as his parting shot.
Say what you will about the Halftime Show, the most compelling message was already delivered by a commercial barely halfway into the first quarter.
But only if you felt as much as heard the National Anthem before kickoff. I can’t recall the melody ever before accompanied by a subtle, steady drum roll. The piano and voice may have been a liberating jazz, but those drums kept the tune grounded in America’s conflicted history.
New Orleanian Jon Baptiste’s rendition of the Anthem was as fitting a forerunner for Lamar as John the Baptist was for his cousin who would also claim all attention with an equally radical, if peace-making, message. Between the two was a football game that soon turned into a rout and commercials that ranged from hilarious to serious, and from whimsical to earnest.
Madison Avenue has made the broadcast its own celebration, much in the way that the Oscars serves Hollywood. Most ads that air during the protracted game–from all the pregame hype (Oscars’ red carpet) through the “Halftime Show” (O’s best song nominees) to the post-game ceremony (after parties)–are premieres. Lavish and sensational, some blunt, others sentimental, they are a heavy investment for our approval.
Eight million dollars a pop according to commentator Tom Brady, himself a co-star with Snoop Dog in a public service address against hate, near the start of the game. The text is not denunciation but illustration, a white and a black guy going at each other, airing out both sides. Then a pause before the final line, the first to include the pronoun “we” so it doesn’t matter who says it: I hate that we have to make a commercial about this.
For as long as I can remember, I’ve spent the day after the Super Bowl picking out highlights of the commercials. This year, however, I’m taken more by a theme that evolved like a passion play with the Anthem as the opening scene and halftime as the finale.
In between was a lengthy ad that had no voice over. We do hear LL Cool J’s song “Mama Said Knock You Out,” and will later learn that it was produced by Pfizer to highlight the company’s cancer research efforts.
A camera takes us through the open door of a hospital room and to the bed of a small boy who lies there hooked up to an IV and who knows what else. He looks out the window, and is determined. No more! He unhooks himself, gets up, gets into boxing trunks, goes to the sink, splashes water on his face, gets his boxing gloves on, and out the door and down the corridor he goes, throwing punches, shuffling his feet, dodging punches, leaning in.
Nurses, doctors, other patients, hospital staff and visitors applaud and cheer him on. Out the door he goes and down a main street lined with cheering crowds on both sides. Up some stairs he goes–yes, this is a play on Rocky–and onto a landing for the entrance to a public building, arms raised as he looks out toward public buildings waving American flags. A title finally comes onto the screen:
We Will Beat Cancer!
All well and good. Unanimous approval, as we’ve already joined the cheering, applauding, smiling crowd. But what happens if we add context, if we start connecting dots?
What if you recall, just one touchdown and kickoff ago, the video that played during the National Anthem? What if you recall the camera’s pan to someone saluting our flag with ramrod posture and a stern expression who just days earlier signed an executive order to stop all funding for medical research?
Oh, have I upset you? A moment ago were you entirely with me in smiling approval of the boy’s recovery and determination? But now I’ve played a dirty trick and made you uncomfortable?
That’s what Kendrick Lamar did with the Halftime Show. Argue whether it was entertainment or not, art or not, “appropriate” (whatever that crap, cop-out of a word is) or not, it was a litmus test. To those willing to listen, he could not have been any more American, any more red, white, and blue.
To the rest, he is now a complete unknown.
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Mouth of the River 