Why Lil Wayne Was The Perfect Pick For The Super Bowl Halftime Show
It appears the townspeople are mad at the Gods.
Shortly after it was announced that supreme being Kendrick Lamar would be the 2025 Super Bowl halftime show headliner, all hell broke loose. Followers, fans and fanatics alike all took to social media to complain that this wasn’t just a travesty but a miscarriage of justice.
See, Super Bowl LIX is set to be played in Caesars Superdome in New Orleans, Louisiana, and some folks believe that rap deity and Louisiana native Lil Wayne would’ve been the better choice. Not only is he considered one of hip-hop’s GOATs (greatest of all time), but a Super Bowl halftime show led by Wayne could’ve been a phenomenal walk through his catalog and work with the Hot Boys, Cash Money and Young Money Records, which could’ve included cameos from hip-hop elites.
Conspiracy theories were wild. Even rapper Cam’rom jumped into the fire to claim another rap legend was hating.
“It’s in New Orleans, and you don’t get Lil Wayne? That’s what we doing? You don’t get Lil Wayne in New Orleans for the Super Bowl? It’s no reason why Lil Wayne should not be performing at the Super Bowl,” Cam noted during his wildly popular podcast “It Is What It Is.”
The Dipset rapper even speculated that Jay-Z, who, along with his company ROC Nation, signed a five-year deal with the NFL in 2019 that included consulting on the Super Bowl halftime performances, was the one who kept Wayne off the bill.
“It’s one person who’s stopping this. It’s not really a secret,” Cam stated, never naming Beyoncé’s husband outright. “Lil Wayne had a problem with somebody before who’s kinda part of the organization running it. This is payback. Who’s Lil Wayne’s artist? Drake. This is crazy, bro. It’s ridiculous.”
Now, let’s backtrack for a second while speaking of Beyoncé: Where was this outrage over a decade ago when the “Single Ladies” singer led the 2013 Super Bowl halftime show in New Orleans? One could argue Wayne was better suited to rock the stage that year as he was at the height of his career, much like Kendrick is now.
Having trouble following? Don’t worry. Just know that the hip-hop Gods are beefing. In the same way that Typhon, Dionysus, Zeus and Poseidon didn’t kick it, Drake, Lil Wayne, Jay Z and Kendrick aren’t friends, which means anyone can catch these thunderbolts.
So, while the townspeople fight over scripture, I’d like to add this bit to the argument: Lil Wayne is the perfect pick to play the halftime show. You see, he has been on the wrong side of just about every Black empowerment movement. He’s been pro-police, anti-Black Lives Matter movement, posed with then-President Donald Trump, and even gone so far as to claim that racism doesn’t exist. He’s not just the rapper other rappers envy; he’s the rapper NFL owners love. So why would he not perform during the largest display of Black athleticism on this side of the NBA Finals?
To be fair, Lil Wayne’s feelings about the police were forever altered when he was young. At 12, Wayne shot himself in the chest during an apparent suicide attempt.
“My life was saved when I was young,” he said in 2018 during an episode of Apple Music’s Young Money Radio. “I was 12 or something, I think. Shot myself. I was saved by a white cop, Uncle Bob. So you have to understand … you have to understand the way I view police, period. I was saved by a white cop.”
He continued: “There was a bunch of Black cops jumped over me when they saw me at that door, laying on the floor with that hole in my chest. He refused to. Those Black cops jumped over me, and ran through the crib, and said, ‘We found the gun, we found this, we found that.’ He said, ‘I found this baby on this floor. I need to get to a hospital.’ He didn’t wait for an ambulance. He took his car. He made somebody drive it, and he made sure that I lived.”
And while this story is both heartbreaking and sentimental, it highlights Republican talking points that are always misused when the uninformed speak about the Black Lives Matter movement, which was never anti-white police officers. I’m sure leaders of the Black Lives Matter movement would’ve been upset that Black officers ignored a 12-year-old boy’s wounds to search for a gun. I’m sure they would’ve applauded the white officer’s willingness to save a young Wayne’s life.
What the Black Lives Matter movement argued from the onset was that the over-policing of communities of color leads to the assumption that those living in those neighborhoods are guilty until proven innocent, and therefore, their lives weren’t worth living and could be justified after their deaths. It was never a race issue. Republicans made it that. And an uninformed Wayne inherited this position.
I love what Uncle Bob, who died in 2022, did for Wayne. I also wish more police were this way, but sadly, Uncle Bob is the exception and not the norm. Wayne’s position around policing is in lockstep with the NFL, which tried incessantly to create this mythical alliance between the police and the armed forces despite almost 55% of the league being made up of Black men. Most recently, Tyreek Hill’s violent detainment by overly aggressive police officers has brought the issue of policing and the Black community back into the national spotlight.
In 2016, during an appearance on Fox Sports 1’s “Undisputed,” Wayne was asked his opinion on San Francisco 49ers quarterback Colin Kaepernick’s kneeling protest. The rapper noted that he respected Kap’s position but had no opinion on it.
Wayne said he was so uninformed about the movement and its reasoning that someone had to explain it to him. When pushed further, Wayne said, “I’ve never experienced racism in my life.” He noted that it is because he’s blessed.
Then co-host Shannon Sharpe added that surely Wayne would have an opinion after Alton Sterling was shot and killed by police in front of a Baton Rouge, Louisiana, convenience store that same year.
Wayne basically didn’t care. In fact, he said that his concern was his kids, and that’s it. He then noted that the abundance of white fans at his shows was proof that there was no racism.
The hosts were basically begging the rapper to stand on the side of people who look like him and in the end, Wayne refused to. He would later apologize “to anyone who was offended,” which is not really an apology, and explained how Uncle Bob saved his life and, well, you know, the rest.
Again, in 2016, Wayne would tell an ABC News reporter that the Black Lives Matter movement had nothing to do with him.
“I don’t feel connected to a damn thing that ain’t got nothin’ to do with me,” he said. “If you do, you crazy as shit.”
In 2020, Wayne championed Trump’s presidency, met with him to discuss criminal reform and promoted his controversial platinum plan. Then, he posted a tweet with a photo of him and Trump.
Lil Wayne’s politics don’t align with NFL players. However, they do align with NFL owners — who not only support Trump but have also donated heavily to his campaign. If anyone would’ve been the perfect personification of the hypocrisy that is a league that had “end racism” in their end zones while actively blackballing the quarterback who brought police violence against people of color to the league by kneeling during the national anthem, it would be Lil Wayne.