Earlier this month, rumors started swirling that Jennifer Lopez could possibly be picked as this year’s Super Bowl Half-time performer and it looks like this is actually going down and apparently Shakira will be joining her.
J.Lo tweeted today a cropped image of Shakira with the caption: “This is happening. 02.02.20” and Shaki tweeted a cropped image of J.Lo that read “Get Ready 02.02.20.” And while it’s hard not to rejoice about the fact that not one — but two — Latina artists are performing the half-time show this year, it’s hard to ignore the fact that they both agreed to perform during a time when so many artists of color have refused to take on the show because of how the NFL has chosen to blackball Colin Kaepernick after he refused to kneel while the American anthem played in protest against police brutality and racism against African Americans in the United States.
This is happening. 02.02.20 pic.twitter.com/SwHUhH3Lfe
— jlo (@JLo) September 26, 2019
Get ready 🌎 02.02.20 pic.twitter.com/nCqtPIcc7w
— Shakira (@shakira) September 26, 2019
Pepsi, NFL, and Roc Nation (owned by Jay-Z) announced today that Shakira and J.Lo will be performing the half-time show on February 2nd at Hard Rock Stadium in Miami Gardens, Florida. The show will air live on Fox and broadcast in 180 countries. It’s been a killer year for J.Lo with her lead role in the film Hustlers. And while we’re pretty confident this will be an out-of-this-world performance, we also recognize some of the conflicts with the two of them deciding to take on this show.
Kaepernick who was kicked out of the 49ers after his peaceful protest hasn’t played since spring of 2017 and has yet to get signed to another team. Quite a few music artists have turned the show down out of ethics, including Rihanna, Adele, Cardi B, and Jay-Z , who even rapped about it in “Apeshit,” the lead single from the Carters’ Everything Is Love. The irony here though is that Jay-Z owns Roc Nation. In fact, there’s been a lot of controversy surrounding that. In August, the NFL announced that it was partnering with Roc Nation. The deal includes Roc Nation now helping to “advise on selecting artists for major NFL performances like the Super Bowl.”The partnership also includes a social justice partnership between Jay-Z and the NFL. The initiative which is called, “Inspire Change,” is a collaboration between the NFL, the players’ coalition, and a group of NFL players that are seeking to advance social and racial justice. Meanwhile, Kaepernick is still not back in the NFL for protesting against racial injustices. Just saying.
The NFL really needs to do a better job at how they handle incidents like this and music artists — particularly music artists of color — really need to do a better job at effectively taking a stand against racial injustices otherwise how can we expect any real change to happen?
