Kendrick Lamar’s Super Bowl LIX efficiency has generated lots of on-line chatter, and surprisingly, not all of it has to do with Drake. When the Grammy-winning rapper took the stage for the halftime present, the stage itself took the type of a tic-tac-toe board–but X’s and O’s had been accompanied by a triangle and a sq., which had been meant to evoke the aesthetic of a “PlayStation-style controller,” in keeping with the present’s coordinators and set designers. The thought–which Lamar personally dreamed up–was meant to signify the rapper’s life as if it had been a online game.
“I believe the was symbolic, his method to attain younger individuals,” artwork director Shelley Rodgers informed Wired. “A lot of it’s exhibiting his journey, [showing him] touring by the American dream.”
Artistic director Mike Carson added that Lamar and his manufacturing firm, pgLang, are “actually into protecting issues clear and minimal.”
“We went with a monochromatic concrete look and allowed the online game motif to come back alive by dialogue, lighting, choreography, and music,” Carson mentioned.
However regardless of the stage’s streamlined, minimalist design, the parents working the present had a number of troublesome hurdles to beat. Lamar, his backup dancers, the lighting, and the stage itself needed to be arrange and able to go in below eight minutes. As soon as the efficiency ended, manufacturing had had roughly six minutes to get every thing off the field–without messing up the turf. Though the Superdome’s turf is artificial, defending it was nonetheless no small job, particularly given the truth that a part of the set dressing was an actual GNX that had been closely modified to permit Lamar’s quite a few backup dancers to enter the stage in a clown car-esque method.
“They had been on board with our imaginative and prescient from day one,” Carson mentioned of Shelley Rodgers, who labored to convey the vehicular optical phantasm to life. “Even with this being one of many largest halftime footprints ever, Shelley and staff got here with intelligent concepts and steerage to assist us preserve the design integrity and get this beast throughout the end line.”
However each good recreation wants a villain, and the halftime present appeared to function the ultimate act in Lamar’s seemingly limitless beef with fellow rapper Drake. At one level within the present, Lamar informed his feminine backup dancers that he needed to carry out “Not Like Us,” however had determined towards it as a result of “individuals prefer to sue.” However close to the tip of his 13-minute performance, Lamar carried out a calmly censored model of the extremely fashionable diss monitor. The “life as a online game” theme additionally resurfaced on the finish of the present, with Lamar yelling “Recreation Over!” as the identical phrases appeared in lights throughout the stadium.
Drake has but to make an announcement in regards to the halftime efficiency. Lamar’s rival was reportedly out of the country through the Super Bowl.