Kendrick Lamar’s Super Bowl performance was inspired by a PlayStation controller
YouTube: NFLKendrick Lamar’s Super Bowl performance was inspired by a PlayStation controller according to the show’s art director.
Super Bowl LIX took place on February 9 as the Philadelphia Eagles took home the Lombardi Trophy, toppling the Kansas City Chiefs.
The game’s halftime show performance featured Kendrick Lamar, who played various diss tracks against Drake as well as songs from his new EP, GNX.
As soon as the show started, fans noticed the stages he performed on looked an awful lot like the buttons on a PlayStation controller. During an interview with Wired, the show’s art director revealed why they used the gamepad as inspiration.
Kendrick performed on PlayStation buttons
Shelley Rodgers, the Super Bowl Half Time show’s art director, confirmed that the four stages were, in fact, inspired by buttons on a PlayStation-like controller.
During the song ‘Bodies,’ dancers stepped out of a gutted Buick GNX sitting on top of a square stage, and the other three placed around the field were in the shape of a circle, X, and a triangle. The latter was the focus of his duet with SZA.
Rodgers says that the concept came from Lamar himself – but doesn’t know if it has anything to do with his beef with Drake.
“I think the was symbolic, his way to reach young people,” she told Wired. “A lot of it is showing his journey, traveling through the American dream.”
Wired says that Mike Carson, the creative director behind the show, revealed that the shapes were meant to provide “a clean, easy-to-understand platform” for the rapper to tell a story.
“Dave Free and Kendrick are really into keeping things clean and minimal,” he added. “So we went with a monochromatic concrete look and allowed the video game motif to come alive through dialogue, lighting, choreography, and music.”
Kendrick’s performance wasn’t the only story told during the event, either. The Super Bowl’s annual slew of high-dollar commercials included quite a few trailers for soon-to-released movies.