President Donald Trump became the first sitting president to attend a Super Bowl, and his presence was flashed on the jumbo screen. It's always a crapshoot when a politician attends a spectacle like this. Attendees will let him or her know exactly how they feel. When the big screen showed him, fans cheered. But when the big screen showed the hyper-woke Trump critic Taylor Swift, fans booed.
So far, so good.
What to say about the halftime show performed by the popular rapper Kendrick Lamar? USA Today wrote: "The Grammy-winning rapper took the stage ... for an exhilarating medley performance that paid homage to the Compton emcee's eclectic catalog."
"Exhilarating medley performance"? OK, call me biased, and I'm certainly not in his age demo. "Artists" like Lamar could not care less what I think. But I lean toward performers who can sing, dance, play an instrument or, heavens, do all three.
Nearly 50% of voters in a poll conducted by Darren Rovell gave the performance an F.
My nephew, Eric, loves rap. While driving and listening to a popular "song," I said, "Eric, I don't understand a word." He proceeded to translate each line as it was recited.
"How many times did you have to listen before you were able to figure it out?" I said.
"Figure what out?" he said.
"The lyrics."
"Once."
So maybe it's me. During Lamar's performance, I failed to understand all but a few words. Before the game started, a couple of songs were performed before the national anthem. A beautiful, well-dressed woman used sign language for the hearing impaired. Where was she during Lamar's performance for those of us who suffer from rap lyric comprehension impairment? Midway through his performance, I even switched the television to closed captions. I could then read the lyrics but could not understand what he was saying. How many others suffer from my same infirmity?
The medley included "Humble." Its opening lyrics are:
"Nobody pray for me. It's been that day for me. Waaay (yeah, yeah!) / Say, I remember syrup sandwiches and crime allowances / Finesse a n**** with some counterfeits, but now I'm counting this / Parmesan where my accountant lives, in fact, I'm downin' this / D'USSE with my boo bae taste like Kool-Aid for the analysts."
Ebony magazine described one song and the accompanying dancers as "A Powerful Symbol of Unity and Struggle." Indeed, "unity" appeared to be the performance theme. Given that message, Lamar's choice of actor Samuel L. Jackson to serve as a sort of emcee seemed bizarre.
Jackson suffers from an acute case of Trump Derangement Syndrome. In a 2023 Rolling Stone interview, Jackson said: "When I see Trump, I see the same rednecks I saw when I was growing up who called me 'n*****' and tried to keep me in my place. That's what the Republican Party is to me." In a 2019 tweet, Jackson wrote, "Calling that Muthaf--kah a Motherf--ker is not an issue, calling that Muthaf--ah President is!!" But what does one expect from someone who, in a college student protest at Martin Luther King Jr.'s alma mater, held Martin Luther King Sr. hostage for two days? The Hollywood Reporter wrote. "Jackson soon jumped into campus politics, eventually joining a spring 1969 protest -- in which he and others held Morehouse trustees (including Martin Luther King, Sr.) hostage -- that got him expelled for two years." Hey, youthful indiscretion, right?
Time magazine fretted that Lamar, by agreeing to perform at the Super Bowl, placed his street cred on the line. Time wrote, "Lamar's superpower has long been his unique ability to navigate this exact tension between message and reach: to tell stories of American pain and oppression ..."
Lamar appears to be winning his struggle against pain and oppression. Architectural Digest recently wrote, "Pulitzer Prize-winning rapper Kendrick Lamar has reportedly signed the paperwork to buy a not-so-humble Brentwood, Los Angeles, (mansion) for more than $40 million." It beats camping out.
As for Jackson, the movies in which he has appeared have grossed more money than those of any other actor in history -- not too shabby in an incredibly competitive business in a supposedly racist country.
Oh, Philadelphia beat Kansas City 40-22.
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