| Hip-hop is East Coast. Hip-hop is West Coast. Hip-hop is Europe... This is what the Super Bowl is showing to people: It's not just one thing. [Hip-hop] is everywhere. | |  |  | | Mary J. Blige at Madison Square Garden, Oct. 5, 1995. | | (David Corio/Redferns/Getty Images) | | | | quote of the day | | | rantnrave:// | Five Mics
The JAY-Z'ing of the Super Bowl halftime show takes a five-mic step forward with a hip-hop extravaganza that will feature DR. DRE, SNOOP DOGG, EMINEM, MARY J. BLIGE and KENDRICK LAMAR during Sunday's game between the CINCINNATI BENGALS and LOS ANGELES RAMS. Depending who you ask, that's either one of the greatest classic hip-hop lineups ever assembled or a little too much lineup for a show that that will last around 13 minutes, or less than 3 minutes per artist. "Blige will have to shave her discography down to just one song," Elle magazine matter-of-factly reported in the middle of a feature about her beauty routine a couple weeks ago. Some Mary J. Blige fans, understandably, found that insulting. And that's without anyone having mentioned that whatever song she picks, she won't have enough time to finish it.
The medley of edited songs is a Super Bowl tradition born of necessity. Given 13 minutes to entertain an absurdly large, worldwide TV audience, what else is a performer to do? But it's a harder necessity to swallow when you have to share those 13 minutes with several other artists. The NFL has gone back and forth over the years between giving its stage to a single headliner (LADY GAGA, the WEEKND, PRINCE) and a headliner plus big-name guests (COLDPLAY with BEYONCÉ, BRUNO MARS and MARK RONSON). Dr. Dre is the nominal headliner Sunday, but in reality the NFL has set up a show that isn't only going to be a medley of songs, it's going to be a medley of artists, too.
"The NFL wouldn't ask the ROLLING STONES, AEROSMITH and U2 to share a 30-minute [sic] set," DAVID DENNIS JR. complains in the Undefeated. "So why are they asking these icons of Black music to all share a stage?" That's a fair question, especially when it's being asked about the first halftime show the league has ever devoted entirely to hip-hop. ("It's crazy that it took... all of this time for us to be recognized," Dre said at a Super Bowl press conference Thursday.) The question becomes even more resonant in a year when the NFL is being sued by one of its own coaches—BRIAN FLORES, who was fired by the MIAMI DOLPHINS in January—for alleged discrimination in hiring. Is the NFL also gerrymandering the entire hip-hop community into a single halftime district?
And then there's this: It's an open secret that the NFL, a fabulously wealthy sports league whose least valuable team is worth more than $2 billion, doesn't pay the musicians who perform at the Super Bowl. Halftime is music's ultimate for-exposure gig. But the exposure, according to a Billboard analysis, is worth less when multiple performers are competing for those 13 minutes of attention. So the rappers, though they're technically getting paid exactly the same as the Rolling Stones and Lady Gaga, effectively are getting paid less.
The NFL has produced its halftime shows in recent years as part of a partnership with Jay-Z and ROC NATION, and the effort to reach hip-hop nation is transparent. The arrangement has been praised for making the league's entertainment more inclusive and more current, and criticized for being a performative response to very real issues around race that have plagued the NFL in recent years. You can hardly complain about the talent. But questions will linger about the league's commitment and motivation. A few years ago, the league asked Jay-Z himself to do the halftime show. But then it asked if he wouldn't mind bringing along RIHANNA and KANYE WEST. "Of course I would have," Jay-Z told the New York Times, 'but I said, 'No, you get *me*.' That is not how you go about it." He turned the league down.
Next year, maybe it should try asking again.
(Also performing Sunday: MICKEY GUYTON will sing the national anthem before the game. And FOO FIGHTERS will livestream a concert via FACEBOOK and INSTAGRAM as soon as the game, which the underdog Bengals will win, is over.)
(And a note on one of Sunday's performers: Snoop Dogg was sued this week for alleged sexual assault by a dancer who worked for Snoop and other rappers. The suit is graphically described here.)
Etc Etc Etc
RONNIE'S, a documentary about the hallowed London jazz spot RONNIE SCOTT'S and the saxophone player (and gambler) who opened it 63 years ago, is in select theaters in the US today and available on-demand as well. OLIVER MURRAY directed... CHRIS YOUNG, MIRANDA LAMBERT, CHRIS STAPLETON and WALKER HAYERS are the leading nominees for the ACM AWARDS, which will be held March 7 in Las Vegas... TOMMY CASTRO, CHRIS CAIN and ANTHONY PAULE top the slate of nominees for the BLUES MUSIC AWARDS, to be handed out May 5 in Memphis... And for the GUILD OF MUSIC SUPERVISORS AWARDS, it's these films and TV shows... The new king of figure skating, NATHAN CHEN, did his gold-medal-winning free skate to a medley of ELTON JOHN songs—two of them performed by Elton's movie doppelgänger TARON EGERTON and one by Elton with PINK and LOGIC, which was some gold medal music supervision if you ask me.
It's Friday
And that means new albums from Super Bowl performers SNOOP DOGG, whose B.O.D.R. (BACC ON DEATH ROW) comes out just two days after it was announced he's actually bought Death Row, as in the label, and MARY J. BLIGE, who collaborates with Anderson .Paak, Dave East, DJ Khaled and Usher on GOOD MORNING GORGEOUS, her first album in five years... Buzzy Florida rapper $NOT says his third album, ETHEREAL, is "the most 808s $not album yet," which I believe is an emo alert... BIG THIEF's DRAGON NEW WARM MOUNTAIN I BELIEVE IN YOU is a double-length album from one of the most acclaimed rock bands of recent years that includes, for example, "a droning, drum-machine-accompanied ode to road tripping" and "a firepit singalong with a prominent flute solo running through it"... TEGAN AND SARA's STILL JEALOUS is an acoustic role-reversal remake of their 2004 album, "So Jealous," with the sisters singing each other's songs.
Plus new music from SHAMIR, SPOON, RAVEENA, JUICY J & WIZ KHALIFA, KENNY MUNEY, PRISCILLA BLOCK, DUSTIN LYNCH, ORVILLE PECK, EDDIE VEDDER, FRANK TURNER, JOSS STONE, ETHAN IVERSON, CLAIRE ROUSAY & MORE EAZE, KIM PETRAS, ALT-J, TRENTEMØLLER, FORT ROMEAU, CULT OF LUNA, ROLO TOMASSI, AUTHOR & PUNISHER, ZEAL & ADROR, VOIVOD, ALTO ARC (featuring Danny L Harle and Deafheaven's George Clarke), BACKSLIDER, EMPATH, TRAE THA TRUTH, G PERICO, KID CAPRI (released earlier this week), COUSIN STIZZ, SLASH FEAT. MYLES KENNEDY & THE CONSPIRATORS, ANDY BELL, AIYANA-LEE, FOXES, the CACTUS BLOSSOMS, JOE NICHOLS, the DELINES, DELVON LAMARR ORGAN TRIO, ROB BURGER, MOONCHILD, AMOS LEE, OMBIIGIZI, JOYWAVE, ADAM MILLER and DAN ANDRIANO & THE BYGONES (of Alkaline Trio).
Rest in Peace
Rock multi-instrumentalist IAN MCDONALD, a founding member of both King Crimson and Foreigner. That's him playing the alto sax on the former band's prog-rock staple "21st Century Schizoid Man." He quit after one album, and within a decade was playing guitar and keyboards on, and co-producing, "Cold as Ice" and "Hot Blooded." Respect. Foreigner coldly, icily even, kicked him out after three albums.
| | - Matty Karas (@troubledoll), curator | |
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