When the Kansas City Chiefs (named after genocided people) are playing the brain-damage slave games, as American F-35s (currently genociding people) fly over the covered stadium just burning money, there is no rebellion at half-time. Gil Scott Heron was absolutely right that the revolution would not be televised, and Kendrick Lamar was wrong to refute him. Kendrick Lamar's song and dance just gave the appearance of rebellion, a fifteen-minute slot during full-time repression.

You could see the repression quite clearly when backup dancer Zül-Qarnain Nantambu flew a Palestinian and Sudanese flag and got dragged off-screen. Kendrick has scrupulously said nothing about either genocide, unlike even Drake who called for a ceasefire publicly. In this case, Kendrick's silence takes the side of the oppressor, and for this he has been rewarded handsomely.

What was Kendrick even doing in this performance? Dissing a Canadian while the rapey American President sits in the audience? Standing in front of an American flag that Colin Kapernick was blacklisted for kneeling against? Entertaining tourists for $3,000 a ticket while homeless people are bused into unheated concentration camps? People talk about inclusion, but inclusion in what? People talk about diversity, but why diversify this disaster? This is just selling out and celebrating it.

Rappers being about their money is no surprise and I don't begrudge them that. As Kendrick said early in his career, “Money trees is the perfect place for shade.” But to say this is a victory for ‘the culture’ is a condemnation of hip-hop culture itself, long reduced to free advertising for diamonds from 'Israel' and luxury goods from Europe, ie the worst people on earth. Malcolm X scoffed at this idea of celebrity leadership decades ago, saying,

I just told you a little while ago these leaders that they call leaders—this included Lena Horne this included Dick Gregory—and this included comedians, comics, trumpet players, baseball players. Show me in the white community where a comedian is a white leader. Show me in the white community where a singer is a white leader, or a dancer, or a trumpet player is a white leader. These aren't leaders. These are puppets and clowns that have been set up over the white community and are over the black community by the white community and have been made celebrities and usually say exactly what they know that the white man wants to hear.

Or as the more modern activist Bree Newsome said,

The fixation with the Grammys, Oscars & Super Bowl is about these being white-dominated spaces… Can we be honest? 🥴 So what does it mean that we place so much value on white spaces & remain so invested in being part of white elitism? “We’re Black! In a white space! With white people watching us!” Like…😬 We need to unpack this. The overvaluing of white spaces itself is a problem. There’s no way to arrive at that point without first being invested in whiteness & the idea that white spaces are superior.

Irregardless of the content of Kendrick Lamar's performance, you have to look at the context. The Super Bowl is the pinnacle of American football, but the base is thousands of debt slaves in the college football system, who are much more likely to get brain-damaged than ever get paid for the labor. But the universities and mostly white coaches make money on them all the way. If they ever make it, the National Football League (NFL) is mostly Black players, but the owners (with the exception of one Pakistani-American) are all white. Black men are traded back and forth amongst their white owners like what Young Dolph called rich slaves.

Then look at the physical space that this musical ‘half-time’ happens in. The US President is there, fresh off calling for ethnic cleansing of Palestine, which every US President has been doing. The US Marines staged a flyover of the covered stadium for some reason, because the whole thing is a showcase of not just American football but American power. These are the men and matériel besieging Gaza this very day, and these are the warmongers and war that leave their own people in poverty. The whole thing is like a Roman Circus, except with Carl Jr's hamburgers instead of bread (they actually gave out free burgers the next day, calling it National Hangover Day, because the nation is deeply depraved).

Then look at the context around the famed Kendrick/Drake feud behind Kendrick's big song. Both artists are owned by Universal Music, which is owned/run by prominent Zionists like Sherry Lansing, Bill Ackman, and most nefariously of all, Haim Saban. While Kendrick had a whole stadium singing ‘a minor’ about Drake's alleged transgressions, the head of Universal Music Lucian Grainge is actually named in a suit about sex abuse at the ‘Diddy Parties’. Then remember that Black artists like Diddy and R. Kelly actually end up in jail however big they get, while Jeffrey Epstein ended up dead in jail because Bill Gates, Donald Trump, and Bill Clinton are too big to fail.

What are we even talking about here at the Super Bowl? Anything but the actual problems and the actual criminals. It's all a distraction for the plebs while the super elite that own the game, own the league, and own the performance, and own the masters continue their Eyes Wide Shut shit in the super suites. Everybody else gets a fat burger and four hours of thin entertainment.

I don't mean to single out Kendrick Lamar here. Get paid, I don't care. Kendrick is not the object of criticism because he's not the one really getting paid at all. As high as you get in the working class, he's still working for his living, while the ownership class owns him, owns the football players, and owns the celebrities in all the commercials. The question is now who sells out but who's buying. That's the actual thing to actually rebel against, and not from stages they own. As Brother Malcolm said, “This is part of what’s wrong with you. You do too much singing. Today it’s time to stop singing and start swinging.”