8 Questions We Have About Jay-Z’s Super Bowl Halftime Show

Several years deep in an NFL partnership that offered him a say in the league’s entertainment dealings, Jay-Z finally announced himself as the Super Bowl halftime show performer. He caps off a monthslong celebration of his craft on stages around the world by taking arguably America’s largest live platform next February. Nobody has ever been in a position to book themselves as the Super Bowl headliner, so there’s a lot to think about.

Why Jay-Z now?

After a stream of contemporary hitmaker headliners in the 2010s (Katy Perry, Beyoncé, Bruno Mars), the halftime shows under Roc Nation peeled away current pop trends in a streak of sought-after performers with dense back catalogues (Rihanna, Lady Gaga, Usher), sometimes years removed from a studio album. Was Jay preparing to slide his name into the running after rave reviews for stadium shows celebrating the anniversaries of Reasonable Doubt and The Blueprint? Or was this decision smoothed by a long season of lesser works from the biggest artists? The alternatives here — Taylor Swift doing the widely reviled football fuck-you “Cleveland!,” Morgan Wallen doing anything, Miley letting the crowd handle all of the singing — didn’t quite sizzle. The artist with the biggest song of the year is Ella Langley, record-breaking “Choosin’ Texas” singer whom many Americans will loudly have you know they could not pick out of a lineup. It was a good year for a polished Jay to make a play.

Will we get a candid conversation about Jay, Colin Kaepernick, and the NFL?

The confluence of Jay’s recent stadium run and the tenth anniversary of Colin Kaepernick’s kneeling protest, which the Roc-NFL deal directly undermined, fueled a potent back-and-forth between the activist and the rapper-mogul that still feels unresolved. Jay accused Kaep of being paid off and silenced by NDA in a Yankee Stadium freestyle; Kaep quickly poked holes in the claim, calling Jay a “Black face” hired to quell dissent in the league who never consulted the protesting player before initiating the NFL partnership. This is a big unforced error for Jay, and minting himself as Super Bowl wheeler and dealer and artist in residence opens him up to more criticism than any of his predecessors about being in bed with the business, not that he seems to mind. Maybe, as was the case with the eight-part docuseries JAŸ in 8, he never gets into it. At the rate the autumn has gone so far, though, Kaep will stay on that neck regardless.

What songs do we bet against hearing in the special?

By nature of a long and often Wonder Bread history for the halftime show, which took ages to warm to hip-hop, a Jay special presents the game with one of its raunchiest catalogues of hits to pull from. No headliner has ever been an ex–drug dealer whose entire mythos is wrapped up in transmuting block-boy brilliance into boardroom brute force. The Aftermath Records family showcase got closest to it with contributions from 50 Cent and Snoop Dogg; the setlist found the most motivational, and least evil, Dr. Dre and Eminem songs that network television allows. The Drake slander in Kendrick Lamar’s 2025 performance broke boundaries for a show that never featured a diss track before. But there are a lot of Jay songs you’re more likely to catch on a tour than in prime time. Does the artist-CEO treat censors to a cat-and-mouse game of darting through tracks about crack deals (“Izzo” gets to it) and shoot-outs (“Friend or Foe ’98” starts there) or deliver a manicured survey of his least objectionable Spotify heaters? You don’t court the controversy of the most scandalous performers when you work for the show, right? But does an “Apeshit” (“I said no to the Super Bowl, you need me, I don’t need you / Every night, we in the end zone, tell the NFL we in stadiums too”) have a place? Do we avoid “U Don’t Know,” the Blueprint classic boasting “so much coke that you could run a slalom”? We cannot get a “Can I Get A …,” right?

Are we banking on another culture-war crash out?

People who log FOIA-able complaints about adult messaging in the Super Bowl halftime show will likely have something to latch on to here. But nobody reads Jay as left leaning the way everyone could sense that a Bad Bunny special would work out a critique of immigration policy. The Turning Point country show that ran against him this year led to weeks of ridicule for everyone involved that seems like a factor in this autumn’s less aggro, more Christian Kid Rock. We might not see nakedly racist animus get that organized again because the counterprogramming made everyone look small. But there’s no telling what discourse percolates when you put a billionaire mogul with a deep, occasionally concerning pot of lore and rumors in view of the conspiracy-theory-loving masses.

Who should (and probably should not) guest?

Linkin Park better be booked to “Numb/Encore.” Alicia Keys hopefully delivers the “Empire State of Mind” to end all “Empires State of Mind.” A Rihanna “Umbrella” spot would be a chest-beating moment for the only record label currently (ever?) touting multiple billionaires, but any showing of Roc-A-Fella Records solidarity would be immense, except for Ye. 

Why not Ye?

Jay would force a wild dialogue inviting post-Nazi Ye back to SoFi Stadium after Macklemore was forced off Ed Sheeran’s tour over accusations of antisemitism. The heat would be different than when Ye played the venue in April. Does Jay care to join that rehabilitation campaign if his tour has yet to? His former Throne buddy called his twins disabled last year. Do we need them to hug it out? Many Ye frenemies have proven willing but usually because they benefit from the proximity to a clout supernova. These two, however, don’t need each other.

How will Beyoncé (and Blue Ivy) feature?

Honestly, the streets deserve a Carter mini-set containing, at a minimum, “Upgrade U,” “713,” “Crazy in Love,” and “Déjà Vu.” The Blue Ivy piano accompaniment at SoFi this month probably points to how she will figure into her father’s rap show, which does not leave the openings for a shockingly practiced family backup dancer that Mom’s tours do.

Are we in anyone’s album rollout?

Rihanna played the Super Bowl without releasing so much as a single, breaking the long history of the space being used to promote new work. All of this looking back at Jay’s catalogue onstage and in documentaries and museum exhibits feels like it has been a walk-up to this main event. But Beyoncé once used the special to drop “Formation,” and there are Act III truthers out there who believe Cowboy Carter will be followed by a collaborative sequel to the Carters’ Everything Is Love. A Valentine’s Day event would be an outrageous place to spring that on the world if it existed. But again, we’re still waiting on the next Rihanna album.