Super Bowl halftime show announcements are typically met with either excitement or derision, hype or apathy. It’s a 13-minute show on America’s biggest stage that, barring special occasions, only one artist can headline—it’s impossible to make everybody happy. But the announcement this past weekend that Kendrick Lamar will play Super Bowl LIX’s halftime show next February has produced an unprecedented mushroom cloud of cultural infighting, debate, and long-simmering disdain.
The big game is set to go down in February in New Orleans; there are those who believe that, given the location, Louisiana’s own Lil Wayne should have been offered the opportunity to put on a hometown-hero set, the way Dr. Dre and Snoop Dogg did back in 2022 when the halftime show took place in Inglewood. Complicating matters is the involvement of Jay-Z, who entered into a partnership with the NFL back in 2019 that includes producing the halftime show, and has therefore become—fairly or not—the de facto face of the decision-making process. Jay-Z is a lightning rod for discourse on his own; factor in Kendrick and his beef with Drake, plus Drake’s alliances with figures who have their own issues with Jay-Z and/or Kendrick, and we basically have a civil war brewing, all over a 13-minute production number during a football game.
At press time, Jay-Z hasn’t addressed any of this. Wayne went on IG Live to express his heartbreak over being apparently passed over, thanking the fans but making no mention of Kendrick or Jay either way.
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Below, we break down the geopolitical ramifications of one seemingly innocuous Super Bowl halftime show booking, and the 20-odd years of rap history driving all of these outsized reactions.
Jay-Z, Wayne, Birdman, and “tortious interference”
The two Carters have a complicated history, to be sure. The abridged version is that Wayne has always been an outspoken Jay-Z fan, citing Jigga’s music as a major influence during the period when he leveled up from his Hot Boys era to go on an artistic run that would leave him as a credible contender for Best Rapper Alive, at one point even rapping “Best rapper alive since the best rapper retired.” But hip-hop is a competitive sport: sooner or later, being the GOAT means dispensing with deference. When Jay ended his short-lived retirement right as Wayne was becoming a supernova in 2006, Wayne gave an incendiary, instant-classic interview to Complex. “I’m better than [Jay-Z],” he said. “I don’t like what he’s saying about how he had to come back because hip-hop’s dead and we need him. What the fuck do you mean?” A couple months earlier, Wayne jacked the beat for Jay’s big comeback single “Show Me What You Got;” the consensus was he destroyed it. Many years later, during Wayne’s appearance on the podcast Drink Champs, Jay revealed via a text to the show’s host N.O.R.E. that when Wayne scooped him on the “Show Me What You Got” beat, it was a sobering moment. “I had to take a long walk,” Jay said, “and look at myself in the mirror. I said, ‘Are you sure you still got this?’”
It didn’t have to be that way though. Wayne, who has lyrics from Jay’s “Lucky Me” tatted on his body, almost made his reverence full circle by signing with Jay in 2005. Jay confirmed this in a 2013 interview with the Breakfast Club, revealing that the deal never came to fruition because of Cash Money label boss Birdman, Wayne’s father figure. Since he and Jay had a prior relationship, Jay gave him a courtesy call to let him know conversations were happening which then led to a letter from Birdman’s legal representation citing—in Jay’s words—”tortiurous interference.”
Around 2007, cooler heads briefly prevailed, after only a few minor subliminals had been traded. Wayne apologized for his comments and by the end of that year, he and Jay collaborated on the latter’s new album. That energy continued into 2008, where they worked together on “Swagga Like Us” and more notably, “Mr. Carter,” a track that is meta-textually all about their healthy competition to be the best.
