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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?
“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.
I suppose the world is stuck with Rap and Rock and Roll for a long time to come. Like Covid and diarrhea.
No one is making you listen. But don’t worry. You can always put an Al Jolson 78 rpm record on to comfort your delicate sensitivities. Just gotta hear “My Mammy” again.
Fortunately we aren’t stuck with your fake pet philosophy anymore.
How did it evolve from Louie Armstrong, Charlie Parker, Ella Fitzgerald (who I have performed with), Sammy Davis Jr., the Count Basie Big Bands, to C-RAP?
(I was hired to compose and record the music only for cRap song for a musical. I got on my computer, composed it, recorded it, and called back in thirty minutes. They were surprised? “BOOM BOOM BOOM BOOM BOOM BOOM BOOM BOOM!” They listened to it. “Perfect.”)
Today it’s all about Black Supremacy at the Super Bowl. Black National Anthem? Where’s mine/Hispanic? I’m sure the Native Americans would like one? India Indians? Arabs? Asian? How about ONE National Anthem that represents ALL.
It all started with BEYONCE’S halftime show honoring the murdering Black Panthers with her Ho’s all with raised BLACK POWER fists! As racist as it gets and yet, the people that cheered her on, were outraged with a photo of Musk’s Nazi salute which was him raising his hand to wave. So deceptive! There are photos on the net with Democrats getting the same treatment even though they now support groups who really want the elimination of Jews “from the River to the Sea!” Biden even gave these Domestic Terrorist groups $50 million.
The next year, two Black NFL players sacked a White quarterback, and they stood over him with raised BLACK POWER fists!!! No penalty or kicked out of the NFL? Why not… because Obama normalized going after Whitey! Van Jones and Oprah help too.
I read a report that the NFL is changing the halftime shows due to the massive outrage for this years. I always wanted Americans, but after what’s been going on, I’d be happy again with Paul McCartney or the Rolling Stones. It seemed like they would have honored New Orleans with Jazz, Cajun, and Dixieland. The World was laughing!
I don’t watch halftime shows for football games……..ever. This time around I spent halftime cleaning a rifle. Very productive. If you have a problem with halftime don’t watch.
I get it…..you are a musician. As a musician you should already know that the music world doesn’t stand still. That’s how it went from Louie Armstrong, Charlie Parker, Ella Fitzgerald, Sammy Davis Jr., the Count Basie Big Bands, to C-RAP.
My band of choice, Led Zeppelin probably could have gone on for a few more years had Bonham not killed himself. But times were changing even for them. So the three surviving members worked on new projects. But Zeppelin still rules classic rock radio. Maybe they could do the next S.B. halftime with Jason Bonham playing drums. Just think, a two hour halftime. concert.
Back when some Snowflakes were upset just because Gladys Knight did the National Antheme
Not sure when your talking about. She did it in baseball, I remember some time in the early nineties. It was a hit. She just did it again in 2019. Not sure what kind of people you hang around.
Ray Charles sang for Reagan.
i don”t listen to ******-bullshit
As a person with a degree in music, ten concertos, 80 is Latin-Jazz, classical, Jazz, country, fifties, religious, and a music historian… don’t worry Mr. Elder, history will record this music as cRap!
ONE DANCER in the front of the group of twenty, GRABBED HIS THING, THRUSTED FORWARD WHILE MAKING A FACE! I had also never heard of this cRapper. Understand what they’re saying? Many times, I don’t want to know and with the lyrics written in this article…. “What?” “N*****” is a word they want banned, except they use it in every sentence. If I said it, oh golly! If Whoopi says it three times on The Hate Show, nothing.
NOW IN CALIFORNIA, the run for Governor. KAMALA will use “I’m Black, a Woman, and a minority, vote for me! MR. ELDER is really Black, 100% too, and a minority. With millions of Americans using the “I want to vote for the first Woman VP”, they then voted for Sarah Palin too, right? Will Obama, Michelle, and Oprah, make speeches to Blacks that they must vote for Elder? (Someone wrote that “Elder is the Blackface of White Supremacy!” Sounds like what Van Jones would say.)
There was an article that Californians are tired of Democrats. The same tired faces are lining up including Antonio Villaraigosa who at the 2016 RNC said that Republicans were “trotting out Brown Faces” meaning Rubio, Cruz, and Susana Martinez, Governor of my NM. Guess who the Brown Face was who headed the Democrat convention? (The (D) head of the NM Bernalillo County, Ana Canales, was quoted in our local newspaper: “She’s (Martinez) is a TRAITOR TO HER RACE much less speaking at their convention!” JUST REMEMBER A GOOD ONE: This past September at our NM State Fair, the R’s and D’s had their booths registering and recruiting voters. I like to go up to the D’s and trap them. One day I went up to a man and a woman and I ended quoting ANA CANALES. I mentioned how racist and disgusting that was and I had been told that by a caller asking if I was going to vote, needed a ride, and the closet location to vote. She called me a TRAITOR for voting for R’s. THE MAN IN THE BOOTH SAID, “SHE’S ANA CANALES!” I really went after her now and how racist that was. She couldn’t counter. I looked at the man, an Anglo, and he was trying to smile. Smoke was coming out of her ears!)
PLEASE RUN MR. ELDER!
May not be as bad as the opening ceremony for the Olympics last year just Poor Taste and tacky as well
Rap is the AIDS of popular music.
I wish they would get back to having a marching band at halftime – let the band of the college national football champions perform at halftime.
I could hardly understand him either, Larry. I caught maybe one or two words total.
Rap is just non rhyming poetry with library music in the background. I think Maynard G. Krebs invented it.