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Expert Available: Kendrick Lamar Delivers a Super Bowl Halftime Show Packed with Politics and Punches

WASHINGTON (February 10, 2025) – Kendrick Lamar made history as the first solo rapper to headline the Super Bowl halftime show, delivering a performance that was unapologetically Black and rich with symbolism.

While teasing and ultimately performing “Not Like Us,” Samuel L. Jackson made an appearance as Uncle Sam to symbolize censorship and staged a striking flag formation with his dancers. With nods to history, culture, and his ongoing feud with Drake, Lamar showcased how hip-hop and activism continue to go hand in hand.

Faculty experts at the George Washington University are available to offer insight, commentary and analysis on Lamar’s historic performance as it balanced political defiance with rap beef spectacle, making a bold statement on race and power in America. If you would like to speak with an expert, please contact GW Media Relations Specialists Tayah Frye at tayah.frye@gwu.edu.

Imani M. Cheers, an associate professor of digital storytelling, is an award-winning digital storyteller, director, producer, and filmmaker. As a professor of practice, she uses a variety of mediums including video, photography, television, and film to document and discuss issues impacting and involving people of the African Diaspora. Her scholarly focus is on the intersection of women/girls, technology, health, conflict, agriculture, and the effects of climate change in sub-Saharan Africa. Cheers is also an expert on diversity in Hollywood, specifically the representation of Black women in television and film.

Cheers would tell you, “Steeped in symbolism Kendrick Lamar is once again in a league of his own. His meaningful messages were as poignant and they were petty. He indeed is “Not Like Us”

Loren Kajikawa is chair of the music program at The George Washington University’s Corcoran School of the Arts & Design. His main area of research and teaching is American music of the twentieth and twenty-first centuries, with special attention to the dynamics of race and politics. Kajikawa’s writings have appeared in American Music, Black Music Research Journal, ECHO: a music-centered journal, Journal of the Society for American Music, and Popular Music and Society, among others. His book Sounding Race in Rap Songs (University of California Press, 2015) explores the relationship between rap music’s backing tracks and racial representation. In addition to his publications, Kajikawa is a former Editor-in-Chief of the Journal of the Society for American Music (Vol. 12-13) and he currently serves as co-editor of “Tracking Pop,” the University of Michigan Press’s series of books about popular music.

-GW-