THE REVOLUTION WILL BE MANAGED

The Revolution Will Be Managed

One emerging interpretation of Kendrick Lamar's halftime show at Super Bowl 2025 is that it was a subversive commentary on America—including the current Trump "empire," less than a month old—and the history of black culture (especially rap music). It also included the more obviously targeted diss track Not Like Us, aimed at Drake, Kendrick's chief rival in the game and coincidentally (Kan)Ye West's professional nemesis.

Earlier, I listened to a simpering analysis by a middle-aged academic, clearly suffering from white guilt and racial fetishisation via hip-hop. He theorised that Lamar had won the "game" of halftime shows in a three move combination by being discreetly revolutionary and diabolically smart, leaving me amazed that anyone could be fooled into thinking Kendrick hasn’t had the entire political and entertainment-industrial complex supporting him for the past ten years—including the highest accolade afforded by the intelligentsia, the Pulitzer Prize. He's been the Lin Manuel Miranda of hip hop for a minute.

For if K-Dot (Lamar) were truly a revolutionary hero—the Hip-Hop Malcolm X—then he would have walked away from the corporate sponsors and the Super Bowl altogether, just as Muhammad Ali threw his Olympic medal into the Ohio River.

But it's money that makes America go round, and Kendrick knows that as well as anyone. At best, this was King Kunta's cosplay revolution because the true revolution is the one that definitely will not be televised at the Super Bowl halftime show—more likely, it’s the one that gets canceled.

Burn Everything

"Soon as they like you, make them unlike you."

While the Philadelphia Eagles were comprehensively destroying the Kansas City Chiefs, it seemed as if Kan(Ye) West was destroying himself on X—committing an act of social media suicide by aligning himself with R. Kelly, Puff Daddy, and Adolf Hitler. While one vision of America was being sponsored by Apple Music at the Super Bowl, the other was self-immolating—the American Dream gone wrong.

Or at least, that's how it appears. Because the enigma of (Kan)Ye’s Joker-like diabolical genius is that you never quite know how much is madness and how much is calculated. After all his next album (if released) is called Bully. If stealing attention away from the nation during its biggest pastime event was the game, then (Kan)Ye won more than he lost. And if Kendrick was confirmed as the new, acceptable face of hip-hop, then Kanye became its wholly unacceptable one—though, truth be told, he has been for a long time. Controversy has proven to be an even more addictive drug for the Atlanta-born rapper than the nitrous he has allegedly been regularly inhaling of late.

Politically, the contrast was clear—especially for commentators on the left. On game day, Kendrick represented the progressive narrative of Black America through the lens of Obama-era identity politics, while (Kan)Ye was the hubristic, cautionary tale of a black celebrity symptomatic of Trump's bloated, materialistic, and racist authoritarian dystopia.

So they concluded, while the democrat’s vision of America (courtesy of Apple) was winning the culture war on-field, Trump (sitting in the stadium) and the Republican Party was losing theirs—albeit for all of fifteen minutes before the game resumed.

Though the truth is, (Kan)Ye belongs to neither team.

He's a man alone.

We Gon' Be Alright?

When I speak my mind
It's gon' be some lawsuits and furniture movin'

The morning after the Super Bowl, (Kan)Ye claimed in a social media video that Lamar’s performance was his favorite halftime show since Michael Jackson’s in 1993. High praise, indeed—and seemingly genuine.

Having collaborated on the classic No More Parties in L.A., there is no doubt that Lamar and West share a mutual respect for each other's artistry. Perhaps the 47-year-old (Kan)Ye is now resigned to having lost his crown as the king of rap music to the younger man by ten years, though I suspect he’ll continue to watch the throne, waiting for an opportunity to win it back—though the hour is certainly late.

Given his fascination with the story of the vainglorious King Nebuchadnezzar, which he adapted into an opera in 2019, it may be that (Kan)Ye is, in fact, living through his own version of Daniel 4—a bible chapter in which Nebuchadnezzar is punished by God for his arrogance, reduced to living like a depraved animal, and driven to madness before ultimately returning to the true light of God. Certainly, judging from the timing of his live breakdown on X, one might suspect (Kan)Ye of being a strategic pariah—though only time will tell whether he can recover (as he has before) or whether he has self-sabotaged to the point of no return.

From sinner to saint to sinner again, (Kan)Ye has never publicly declared himself an apostate, but he’s certainly acting as if he’s possessed by a devil that refuses to let him rest in the faith he once professed to follow.

And while Kendrick continues to ride his growing wave of popularity, (Kan)Ye appears to be drowning in his own sea of despair.

With both rivals, Drake and (Kan)Ye, finding themselves out of favour for different reasons, it seems America—and the 'revolution'—currently has room for only one chosen king: Kendrick.

However, judging by (Kan)Ye's recent descent into madness, uneasy lies that crown. Lamar had previously taken to wearing a crown of thorns at Glastonbury 2022 in solidarity with women's rights (Roe v. Wade)—echoes of Nebuchadnezzar's hubris?

Right now, though, there's only one famous Black rapper being 'crucified'—even if some might say it's sadomasochistically self-inflicted: Yeezus.