Kendrick Lamar's Super Bowl Commentary: Art, Race, and Challenging American Inequality

What if art could truly transform society's views on race and inequality? Join me, Al Neely, on the Listen Up Podcast as we explore the cultural earthquake triggered by Kendrick Lamar's Super Bowl halftime show. We tackle the uncomfortable realities of racism in America, a persistent force dividing our nation—especially in the wake of recent political turmoil. With a keen eye, I analyze how Lamar's lyrics pull back the curtain on racial trauma and inequality, drawing from his own gritty experiences. The symbolic presence of Samuel L. Jackson as Uncle Sam during the performance stands as a powerful critique of American capitalism, challenging us to rethink the role of art in confronting societal norms.

Beyond the stage, we journey into the heart of American culture—where violence and skewed values often define success in marginalized communities. Through Kendrick's evocative music, we confront how systemic neglect and political inertia amplify this culture of violence. His fearless storytelling sheds light on how aggressive, rather than truthful, approaches to societal issues perpetuate cycles of entitlement and unrest. This episode isn't just a reflection; it's a call to action, urging each of us to reconsider our place in these dynamics and the transformative potential of art to inspire change. Tune in for a thought-provoking discussion that promises to leave you questioning and inspired.

Chapters

• 0:02 Super Bowl Halftime Show Analysis
• 18:09 American Society Analysis Through Art

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:02

Hello everyone, I'm Al Neely with Listen Up Podcast. I'm going to ask you right off the bat to like and hit the subscribe button. I definitely will appreciate that. I want to talk about the Super Bowl halftime show featuring Kendrick Lamar, and I wanted to give it a few days before I made comments because I just wanted to see some of the posts that were on my social media platforms and they varied and I'm going to attempt to assist people with a little bit of what I know about Kendrick Lamar. And before we get started with that, I think I want to definitely set up some of the things that led or that have led us to that halftime show.

Speaker 1: 1:16

Ok, one of the first things I want to talk about is race and the last presidential election. I mean, it's always been obvious that there is racism in this country, but it was overtly obvious and it one of the things that I've noticed about it and it one of the things that I've noticed about it would do from here on out is every chance I got I would talk about race and racism been trying to suppress it to the point where we don't want to talk about it because it makes people feel uncomfortable, and when people feel uncomfortable about their actions, they get offended, okay, and when you point those actions out, of course they get offended. So this is not something that's going to go away and as long as I am here and it's not going to go away I'm going to continue to talk about it because I want to bring awareness to it. Now let's talk about how racism started. Okay, racism started. Okay, racism started because people needed to create a hegemonic caste system, or the way that they handled the various people and culture. And over the centuries, over the centuries, it has just snowballed to the effect now where everyone's in their little groups. They're focused on their individual selves. Their relationships with one another are isolated to the point where there is no communication, there is no understanding, there's no willingness to understand or want to understand, and because of it, we live in a tribal, cliquish society. That's prejudice and bias against anybody that's different. Now here's the main issue, and when I think about this, I think about Dr King. We're all connected and because we're all connected, we all need one another. We all have to be able to have one another to be successful in the function right. So it's difficult to get people to understand that. I don't know how long it's going to take, but I'm going to do my part to make sure I point it out and I talk about it, ok, so the other thing is well, we need a foundation for it when we're talking about.

Speaker 1: 4:57

The artist known as Kendrick Lamar is one of the other reasons I started the podcast. Hendrick Lamar is one of the other reasons I started the podcast. The reason I started the podcast was I wanted to bring awareness to people that ignore trauma experiences and the cause of those things in one's, in a person's life. Things in a person's life, and especially with Black men, very misunderstood. Even within the culture. It's misunderstood those bases, one for race and the other for trauma experiences in Black men. Now let's talk about Kendrick Lamar.

Speaker 1: 5:55

Okay, kendrick Lamar, the artist known as Kendrick Lamar, started studying a little while ago, and the reason why is because he's largely considered um the top of the hip hop and um rap game. He's largely that tries to bring racial equality to his artwork. He talks about institutional discrimination. When he expresses himself through his art, he does it through his pain, his traumatic experiences and the lack of experiences that he has experienced within the black community. So he uses all of this to bring a vision to everyone so that they can see things through his eyes. Ok, kendrick, he grew up in the ghetto to everyone, so that they can see things through his eyes. Okay, kendrick, he grew up in the ghetto, so he draws his experiences on life from that neighborhood. There was gangs. His family was on welfare. They were homeless. He had hardships, like most families that live in that environment. He's experienced police brutality. He had a speech impediment where he stuttered when he was younger. Many black males. He suffers from psychological trauma and depression.

Speaker 1: 7:55

So let's talk about the halftime show. We're going to talk about some points. So the halftime show when it first came on, it had Samuel L Jackson dressed in Uncle Sam costume and the representation there was the government. You know we've always associated people dressed like that as Uncle Sam, and that is the American culture. The American is the great American game. What he meant by that is one of the things that we've kind of gotten lost in, and you can see it in society, where it's pretty much taken over is capitalism. We are a capitalistic society and that's what everything's based on, to the point where it's gotten out of hand and we don't care about people themselves anymore.

Speaker 1: 9:24

So Kendrick tries to bring awareness to that through his artistry. Okay, and one of the things that I will always, I've always thought and always said was that, um, art drives culture. Okay, so you'll see, you'll see it in our music, you'll see it in our dress, you'll see it in our speech. Um, you'll see it in our music, you'll see it in our dress, you'll see it in our speech, you'll see it in the TV commercials. Right, you saw it during the Superbowl Art drives culture. So right now he has the biggest stick in the rap game. So he's trying to bring awareness to some of the things that are taking place.

Speaker 1: 10:09

Okay, I want to go back to one of the artists known as Kendrick Lamar's quote. What he said was the revelation is about to be televised. You pick the right time, but the wrong guy. So what I read from that was that the Super Bowl is probably the most watched event on television during the course of the year. One of the most watched events. And by him saying the wrong Guy is he's not afraid to push the needle to get you to understand his point. That's something he's just not afraid of. So, um, he wanted to talk about, so he brings some of that out in um his show. Um, you have black and white, you have red, red, white and blue um dress. That was the dress of the people that were on the stage with him.

Speaker 1: 11:25

A little bit later, samuel L Jackson, representing Uncle Sam, comes back with the narrative that you're too ghetto, you're too reckless, you're too ghetto, you're too reckless for the game. You're too reckless, you're too ghetto, you're too reckless for the game. The way I interpreted that was that because he's always pushing the boundaries to what makes culture uncomfortable, he's considered reckless. And that's exactly what takes place with everyday life. If someone feels uncomfortable, they want to remove the books from the shelves. If they feel uncomfortable, they want to cancel someone that has a different lifestyle. So when he's reckless, he's pushing the boundaries so that we can try to learn and experience exactly what he's talking about. We can try to learn and experience exactly what he's talking about. Later on, he tells Kendrick to tighten up. As he's talking about the game and what he means by the game, I have a saying for it.

Speaker 1: 12:56

Where we are right now, in my opinion, we have a new class and I call it the Neo Nouveau Riche and I call it the neo-nuvo-riche. Okay, and it's people that desire our wealth and influence and all of those people that want to be associated with that. Just about. You take a look at most of our politicians. You take a look at Some of our church leaders, entertainers, just people that you see. Celebrities is to be seen, to be associated and to be associated with people that have power, wealth and influence, and because of that, what winds up taking place is you're put in a place where you're subservient to people, and if you're subservient to people, what winds up happening is they control you, and that's exactly where we are right now. You take a look at our society. We are there.

Speaker 1: 14:19

What you have is, under this new political administration, everybody's trying to get in line so that they can please the present political leadership. You have the NFL removing stop racism. Nfl removing stop racism. You have companies getting rid of their DEI mandates. You have companies giving money to political leaders, even though they did not agree with them prior to this, but in order to find favor, they're getting donations, so to speak. What they're doing is they're buying influence because they're afraid to be shut down. Okay, so that's just one of the things he was talking about. So that's what that term, let's not be reckless basically what that meant.

Speaker 1: 15:32

Later on, he talks about his journey, where he raps about his DNA, and what he means by that the way I interpret it is the trauma, the pain, the struggle, his ascension and his arrival, okay, and those are all things that have taken place over the course of his lifetime and he's trying to make us aware of that, and these are the things lots of times are what successful Black men deal with, and men in general, but we're talking about a specific successful black male that came from a marginalized situation and he pulled himself up. He made himself into something that the whole world has access to through his gifts, right? So let's talk about the symbolism of some of the things that we were seeing in the halftime show. Of course, we had the red, white and blue. Everyone was dressed in the red, white and blue, which is a representation of the American flag. Also, during the show, he was walking down the street a so-called street and he had people on the left side of him and people on the right side, and then he went to a scene where there was a group of young Black men, okay, and those young Black men were under a streetlight. So for those that don't go into those neighborhoods on a regular basis, or seldom or rarely, okay, that is something that you can see taking place. You usually have a group of black men and they're on the street and that is a representation of the daily culture in the black ghetto, with black men.

Speaker 1: 18:09

That, I think what winds up taking place in my opinion about that and what I've experience, is there's a lack of education on how to. First of all, they don't quite understand the country in which they live in, because they is education and it's not something that has been impressed upon them throughout their lives. They're doing what they see. And what is it that they see? They see success in what I told you that culture has set up as success, and they're looking at violence. They're looking at the people that have success, which are in those cultures, could be drug dealers or thugs, and they don't understand the effect of education and how, over a period of time and persistence, that that can get you out of that. They don't expect to be in a situation where they're going to live long, okay, and if you don't expect that you're going to live long, you're looking for what um is called short money, and that's what they see as success. But that is a representation of what it's like to be in the ghetto and most times grow up. Now there's people that come out of that situation. There's always success stories. Kendrick is one. We have a number of people that grow up in that environment and come out as successful, but the vast majority of people don't know how to get out of that situation.

Speaker 1: 20:47

All right, one of the things that I also remember him talking about suing. You have to go back and listen to the rap lyrics. These are all songs. You can go back and listen to all of his songs. But he talks about suing, which pertains to, I believe, his confrontation, or his beef, with Drake. Right now, drake is in a position where Drake is trying to sue everyone because of the beef or the conflict he's having with Kendrick Lamar. Okay, as the show goes on, the music slows, it becomes smoother and more, as if it was like R&B music, so more R&B than hip hop.

Speaker 1: 21:57

One of his quotes is that confrontation is nothing new to me. You can bring a bullet, you can bring a morgue, you can bring a sword, but you can't bring me the truth and what he means by. That is and what he means by that is. I feel as though what he means by that is our society is set up so that the whole idea is to address each one of our issues with violence. Okay, and not only is it in the black community. It's period.

Speaker 1: 22:53

Like I said, art drives culture. So this is not something that started in the black community. Um, you take a look at it, um, cowboy and Indian movies, rambo movies, john Wick, right? So we're so focused on pumping ourselves up, learning how to fight, learning different styles, learning how to use a gun, because what society and art has taught us, what art through society has taught us, is the way to deal with our issues is through violence, right? So he's not intimidated by that anymore. These are things that he's seen and he's not intimidated by that anymore. These are things that he's seen and I would be willing to say, the majority of Americans I think the majority of Americans have what?

Speaker 1: 24:03

Three guns per each household of anyone in the world. We have the most shootings. The American culture has the most shootings, deaths of anyone in the world. We have countless numbers of spree shooters, mass shootings, okay, so at some point our political leaders, they're ignoring these things. So he's trying to point these things out in his art. And this is the American culture. Remember the red, white and blue. This is Uncle Sam, is what he's trying to get you to understand. So the way we address it here in this country is we keep buying guns, the NRA gun manufacturers. They keep paying our politicians. We have these mass shootings, we have these free shootings. The politicians say we offer our thoughts and prayers and then they take political contributions from these organizations. So we're in a cycle. This cycle, what Kendrick Lamar is trying to point out is it's an endless cycle, it's not going anywhere. What you're basically doing is you are capitulating to our politicians, are capitulating to these individual organizations, these corporations, and none of this is to the benefit of the American culture. People, you know, we've forgotten about people. We're more concerned about money, power and influence. All right.

Speaker 1: 26:20

So then he talks, talks about, he hates, those that feel like they're entitled, and that's exactly where we are right now. Right, we feel like there's, there's people that feel like they're entitled because of their relationships, because of their relationships. So Then he ends that part with you are the moral of the story. What he means is I'm bringing this to you, I'm pushing the boundaries. I understand what's going to take place. I understand how they're going to talk about me. Okay, we actually have political leaders, or the top political leader, here at the Super Bowl, right, so I'm putting this on to explain this to you, okay, so you are the moral of the story, okay, once he says that I think America wants they don't want any pushback, right, they don't want a false sense of prosperity. They want a false sense of prosperity in order not to offend those and they choose to isolate themselves into their own separate groups, right, so you don't want to be offended. You don't want to bring acknowledgement to it. You don't really want to help the people and those that are in positions of influence, power and wealth and wealth. They just want to stay there and they don't really care about what's happening to anyone else. So that's the whole point. As long as you don't bring attention to it, we're in good shape.

Speaker 1: 28:37

So a list of the people that have been making comments on my social media platforms OK, they fall into these groups of people that want to feel comfortable and want to keep themselves isolated. Fall into these groups the right wingers, the left wingers, the red pill people. Right now we're in this giant culture war. So the culture war warriors, the people that are homophobic, the people that are xenophobic, the isolationists that are xenophobic, the isolationists. And here we have a new group the neoliberal fascists, people that are basically white supremacists and they don't want to acknowledge that because it makes them feel when you say they're fascists, it makes them feel uncomfortable, but their actions are exactly what fascists do, right. So, um, um, the Christian Nationalist right, the Neo-Nouveau-Riche and everybody that wants to be associated with those people. These are the majority, these are a lot of the groups that are right now that Helping drive this isolationism, this lack of communication, this agenda, which they call woke, which basically means that I'm going to cancel you.

Speaker 1: 30:39

Right, so we've gone the last 20 years. We've gone from, okay, the libs, the dems they want to be, they're the cancel culture to, basically, within the last what, four to six years, it flipped. Now the right wing people, or the red pill people. They want to shut you up, so they don't want to give you the freedom of speech. It's a vicious cycle. Okay, you're never going to get to give you the freedom of speech. It's a vicious cycle.

Speaker 1: 31:19

Okay, you're never going to get to where you are by not talking to people and asking them how they feel. You talk to people, you ask them how they feel. What winds up happening is, you'll learn something. You learn something. You'll be able to relate it. So, when you come across that situation with them, what winds up happening is you'll be in a place where there's a bit of understanding. If you have understanding, you've taken the first step to realizing that we're all connected. If we're all connected, you need people, those around you, to have a great amount of success.

Speaker 1: 32:01

Now, those that are in power, those that have influence, of course, they don't want that, because the people that don't have under the system that we have, that don't have under the system that we have. If they just went out and voted, you would have most of the power. But you can see it, you saw it in the last election A third of the people voted for Trump, a third voted for, almost a third voted for Kamala Harris. And then there's a third of people that are just indifferent, impartial, and the reason why is because they feel like the government doesn't work. They feel like the system is rigged. They feel like no one cares about them. They feel like they have no influence. They feel like from a faith-based country that they're not represented. Okay, when you leave that many people out, you're not an accurate representation of a country. So it may look like, since you've had a third of the vote in your political party, won, that that's what everybody wants. The vast majority of people don't want that.

Speaker 1: 33:35

So Kendrick tries to point that out through his artistry in that short period of time. So, basically, I would go back, if you really want to understand it. I would go back and just start listening to his music, okay, and you'll see he's pushing the boundaries from a rap standpoint and he's pushing the boundaries from a political standpoint and he doesn't care. So one of the last things he does is he makes a reference to his conflict with Ray, and if anybody's been listening to, um, what's going on in the culture with Dre and Kendrick Lamar, um, they understand that there's some kind of conflict, right? So this is what I know about it. So I'm going to try to help you with that.

Speaker 1: 34:39

So Kendrick started out when he was first getting started. He was asked by Dre to open up for him and he did, and it seems as though from that point on, there's been some issues, as though, from that point on, there's been some issues. So we're not sure what they are. I'm not sure exactly what they are, but one of the things that Kendrick purity, he has what you consider a. He has an affinity for the people that came for him and came before him the OG rappers, the people that were good lyricists, the people that told the story, the people that were good lyricists, the people that told the story, the people that had political, a political message, because that's what the black culture within that society. Okay, and once the money started flowing into rap, it's kind of changed and it started changing probably within the 90s, and now it's not so much influence when it comes to political, unless you're really into things. You're really into rappers that are not mainstream rappers. You would have to research those. There's plenty of rappers that are not mainstream. There's rappers that change the game.

Speaker 1: 37:07

So he's considered a lyricist, an artist, and his focus is not on political gain. I mean not on, not, not. I mean by political game, not on capital gain gain. Okay. So what he's learned is, if you're a capitalist, people are getting exploited. That's just part of a capitalist society. If you're a capitalist, the people that you work with in some form or fashion are being exploited. Now, I'm not saying it's okay. What I'm saying is you have to have an awareness about capitalism, how it's affecting other people. I feel like you can accomplish what you need to accomplish and bring other people along. It doesn't have to be a total, complete exploitation of people, all right. So that's what the artist Kendrick Lamar, I feel has an issue with Drake about.

Speaker 1: 38:21

Okay, first of all, um, his respect as an artist, um, is in question. He doesn't feel like he falls into that OG message lyricist, superior lyricist, artist. He feels like he's more capitalistic, commercial, mainstream, and that's where what you would say his focus tends to lie. So there's issues and there's one of the things that you would have to go back and study, but just trying to touch base on a little bit of that, that's exactly what you know. I'm reading into his beef with Dre.

Speaker 1: 39:18

So I said all this to say we have an artist that's experiencing trauma, trauma. He's not afraid to push the boundaries to get you to understand what he's trying to say, based on his personal experiences, which is pretty much most of the experiences from people that come from that exact background, and that background can be seen in cities all across this country. That's actually a part of America. Okay, america exploits those people. America, in his music he wants you know, america exploits those people. America can help those people. We choose not to. We choose to put the narrative that they should pull themselves up by their bootstraps. And what I'm trying to tell you here is that, oh, they're willing. Some of them don't know how. Some of them need a blueprint, some of them need a roadmap on how to get from point A to point B, because what they're seeing, what they're experiencing, is not going to be anything that would get them to the point where they would be considered successful in the American society.

Speaker 1: 41:09

So I'll try to do my best to explain things as I see it. I'll try to do my best to explain things as I see it, but stop prejudging, stop canceling people. Learn to ask questions, have grace and just take the time to figure out what your neighbor is feeling and experiencing. What you'll find out is it's probably pretty close to what you're experiencing and you're dealing with, but you don't know that because you choose to prejudge, cancel or be an isolationist. So I'm Al Neely. I'm going to ask you to hit the subscribe Button and you'll get future episodes as they come available and thank you and I'll catch you next time on Listen Up.