Kendrick’s Super Bowl Halftime Show & America

And actor Samuel L. Jackson as Uncle Sam? A genius stroke (and a nod to the actor's role in Spike Lee's Chi-Raq). The historically white symbol of America, now played by one of the most unapologetic Black actors alive, was well -played and a brilliant inversion of power. The wordplay is immaculate, but it is up for debate whether Jackson is, in fact, portraying a game referee Uncle Tom: a colloquial slur used to insult Black men seemingly subservient to white society. Throughout the performance, Jackson criticizes and snitches on Lamar with a jovial, Black minstrel show-like demeanor for being “too loud, too reckless, too ghetto.” Lamar and his “homeboys” are, in fact, so disruptive in Uncle Sam's eyes that Lamar loses a life mid-performance. In this game, Lamar receives a second chance, a luxury rarely afforded to Black Americans in real life.