the REAL problem with Kendrick's Super Bowl show

the illusion of 'black' power

This is a transcript of a video I recently released on my thoughts about the Kendrick Lamar Super Bowl Half Time show. You can also watch and share it via the linked YouTube video if you prefer to watch than read.

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I did not think Kendrick Lamar’s performance at the Superbowl Half Time Show was a powerful moment for Black culture.

In fact, I thought it was detrimental and further neutralised our actual power.

I know, as a black person, I am in a minority. I know that some hearing me say this will default to attacks that I am an african and that is why I don’t understand the black american experience.

Or worse that I’m a tether who takes any chance to disrespect black americans because I want to impress white society.

Well, if you watch my content or read my articles, you’d know that is a crazy perspective to have of what I am and what I do, but we’re all entitled to our opinions.

So, I’m going to tell you why I’ve taken the position I have on the Kendrick performance.

You might agree. You might not.

But if you’ve followed me for any amount of time, you know I’m consistent. I only care about one thing for black and African people.

Complete autonomy.

If you are in my following you know I started The Three Hundred expressly for this purpose of funding my work independently of all corporate and social media ties.

Thank you by the way to the hundreds of you that applied. I am going through those applications and will select the three hundred soon.

If you still want to apply to get on the waitlist, the link is in my profile bio or the description of this video depending on where you’re watching this.

So, maybe I might change some minds by the time you hear what I have to say about the half time show.

If you’re already in your feelings about an African having an opinion on this and you’re ready to rip it apart as fuel for your anti immigrant and anti tether rhetoric, I strongly suggest you stop reading now.

Beacause, you REALLY won’t like what I’m going to say.

For the rest of you, I’m sure you’re going to LOVE this because it’s going to make you feel the power you most definitely already have within you.

PAY ATTENTION

Kendrick Lamar is one of the best rappers alive. One of the greatest, period.

My second favorite album ever is Illmatic. My fifth? Moment of Truth. My eighth? Black on Both Sides. Tenth? All Eyez on Me.

I didn’t hear these on the radio—I lined up to buy the CD the day they were released way before there were mp3’s or streaming.

I don’t have an issue with hiphop. Especially when it’s at its best. And Kendrick is the eptiome of it. A true return to what made the art form what it was.

The poets of the street, telling the world about the experiences of a community that had been ignored and forgotten.

Now that we’ve got that out of the way—here’s my issue.

It’s 2025.

Why is the hood and the struggle still the dominant aesthetic of Black “excellence" and the way in which it communicates with the wider world on the biggest stage?

I said this on a live show.

Some agreed. Others lost their minds. They fixated on the word ‘hood,’ and accused me of parroting white rhetoric, some even claimed I was anti FBA.

Hood is short for neighborhood, referring to historically Black urban areas impacted by redlining, economic disinvestment, and overpolicing. That’s the literal coloquial definition.

Now, take that definition and juxtapose it with the reasons people say the performance was great:

It was a message of defiance.

It showed solidarity against oppression.

It was a statement against the economic trap set against black america

It was an ironic nod to how white America sees us

It shows we still rise and persevere

It’s all tied to struggle. It’s a performance of the position white society put Black people in.

And here’s my question—why, in 2025, are we still embracing a position we didn’t choose?

There are videos online analysisng the subliminal meanings and hidden messages.

If a message needs to be explained it means most people won’t get it. So then what’s the point?

If it is meant only for black people to understand the deeper meanings, what’s the point?

Why are we sending coded messages to each other at white events?

If it was for the establishment, why are we still sending messages at all to white and corporate America?

They don’t care. They never have. If they did, things would have changed a hundred years ago.

Some say progress is being made.

What good is progress when it isn’t in your hands but in the hands of others who decide how much and what kind of progress you get?

We should be building autonomy and independence, not performing for the same establishment that profits in the billions off Black bodies but gives a fraction in return to the select few.

People say, “But Kendrick has a Pulitzer! A Grammy! He’s not like other rappers.”

Who gives those awards? Us? Or the very people you claim are unjust?

So why are we using their validation system and trophies to define our greatness?

Do you see the trap?

And what’s the bestcase outcome of this performance?

White America wakes up?

The NFL suddenly cares about its Black athletes?

Police start treating Black people with dignity?

Reparations get paid?

I agree with every one of those goals.

But I don’t believe in asking for them.

When you ask, the power stays with the person who gets to decide to give or not.

Power isn’t given. It’s taken.

So how do you take it? Guns. Violence. Bombs. War.

Yes that’s how the west took and keeps power but they also use something way more effective.

Leverage.

Your talent.

Your skills.

Your buying power.

Your voices.

Your votes.

You withhold those things until you get what you demand.

Imagine this: No Black artists perform at the Super Bowl. No Black players take the field. No black people buy tickets. No black people watch the game. What happens next?

When the pockets hurt, change follows.

When the league is void of the best players, the fans throw a tantrum. Then they realise if they want the best show they HAVE to listen to the community from where the best players come from

When the product suffers, the system listens.

Even better—own your own league. Let everyone play as they do, but control the revenue. Because you have the best players.

The most powerful thing any human with control and autonomy can do is to have the ability to say one word when asked to do or give something.

That one word is

NO

This can’t happen if we keep playing into the struggle narrative.

White America is comfortable with Black people in this position.

This is known as controlled opposition. I will talk more about this concept another day.

But Noam Choamsky, a well known analytic philosopher, famously said…

“The smart way to keep people passive and obedient is to strictly limit the spectrum of acceptable opinion, but allow very lively debate within that spectrum — even encourage the more critical and dissident views. That gives people the sense that there's free thinking going on, while all the time the presuppositions of the system are being reinforced by the limits put on the range of the debate.”

As long as we keep asking, they know we believe they have something we can’t take for ourselves.

Singing. Rapping. Performing. For them. That’s all that matters.

It’s about the money

You know I don’t mince words. So let me ask you:

Is this the final form of blackness whatever that term ‘black’ that we didn’t create is?

Is this the ceiling of Black representation?

Or can we be more?

There’s nothing wrong with Kendrick’s performance. It was great. But this isn’t new.

This was F The Police by NWA, Cop Killer by ICE T, Fear Of A Black Planet by public enemy, 92 Tupac, 94 Nas, 98 Jay Z, 2019 J Cole. The Roots, Talib Kweli

Is this where Black progress stops?

It’s 2025

Now, some will twist my words, claim I’m “dissing FBA” or “hating on Black American culture.”

Don’t fall for it. Such people NEED me to be the bad guy because then it means they don’t have to actually face reality. What I’m saying isn’t rocket science.

Their’s is an emotional defense against a logical point:

You get what you take.

What you’re given only has real value to the giver.

I believe in the FBA definer as a concept. I believe in the demands being made.

Where I differ is how to get them.

There’s no PanAfrican unity as long as we’re still looking to the dominant society for anything—by asking, performing, rapping, or singing.

At the end of the day, for some, they don’t believe in that unity at all and there is where we have always failed to advance.

Oh and for those comparing this to the Sahel Alliance?

Did Goïta of Mali, Tchiani of Niger and Traore of Burkina Faso hold concerts for France?

Did they perform at a World Cup halftime show to send a message covert or overt to highlight the suffering and experience of their people under French neo colonial oppression?

No.

They took power. Teamed up. Withheld resources. And now?

They’re the fastest growing economies in West Africa.

They have leverage. They have autonomy.

Today France listens to them not because they were asked to, but because it has to

Black Americans have the power to get everything they want.

The trick is making you believe you have to keep asking and rapping for it.

Singing and dancing for it.

Running scoring three pointers, touchdowns or knockouts in rings for it.

There’s a reason celbrities and black billionaires are held up as symbols of success to the black and african community.

But how did they get successful?

Certainly not with the tools necessary to liberate the minds and bodies of Africans to operate independently of the machine.

Since this amazing half time show.

Has anything changed? Do you believe anything will change?

This is a game and we are the pawns. Some will say well we have to play to win

I say how do you win at a game when Whiteness IS the game. It cannot be beaten because it is the board, the rules, the pieces, the timer, the rewards

Get off the board and build your own. It is the only way

Many of you can’t hear what I’m saying. It’s too difficult because it would mean a detachment from the machine and taking a position that is more terrifying than oppression.

A position of actual power and control of your own destiny.

To those who have never had it, that is the scariest thing there is.