Musical Performance as a Political and Discursive Dispute in the Diaspora

An Analysis of the 2022 Super Bowl Halftime Show

Abstract

he 2022 edition of the Super Bowl’s halftime show, organized by the National Football League (NFL), in the USA, raised discussions because it was the first time the event was dedicated to the country’s hip hop culture. What might have seemed like a celebration of Black culture was, too, a stage for political and discursive disputes woven into the performance. The NFL is criticized for its treatment of racial matters, which led artists to search for strategies that allowed them to convey rap’s central message: the criticism of racial oppression and the celebration of Black lives. In this article, I analyze the dynamics of discourse contestation that take place in this performance. In order to understand how politics and performance intertwined in the show, I take race as an analytical category of crucial relevance and consider aspects of rap’s history and structure.