“The revolution’s about to be televised,” Kendrick Lamar bellowed near the start of Sunday’s Super Bowl halftime show.
“You picked the right time but the wrong guy,” he added.
Au contraire. Lamar’s appearance as the first rapper ever picked as a solo halftime headliner in the NFL’s big game was big-time overdue. Having him be the guy to finally do it, though, proved to be a perfect choice.
Gearing up for a spring and summer tour that kicks off with an April 19 date at U.S. Bank Stadium — yes, his next gig after the Super Bowl will be in Minneapolis’ super-echoey football field — the rapper not surprisingly brought out his co-headliner for those upcoming shows, digi-soul singer SZA, on Sunday in New Orleans. Otherwise, though, he mostly kept it a one-man show.
Following a booming introduction by actor Samuel L. Jackson dressed as Uncle Sam, the Los Angeles superstar appeared midfield at the Superdome standing atop a 1987 Buick Grand National GNX, the car that gave him the named for his latest album, “GNX.” He then launched into snippets of the new LP’s title track and another cut from it, “Squabble Up.”
Just as he’s done in his two prior arena concerts in the Twin Cities at Xcel Energy Center, Lamar showed a keen eye for choreography in the halftime show — not the pole-dancer-variety choreography you see in too many rapper’s acts, but way more artful dance movement that demands attention from the eyes as much as Lamar’s lyrics and beats grab you by the ears.

The show’s dramatic visuals peaked during a montage with his older hits “DNA” and “Humble,” when his massive dance troupe lined up perfectly in red, white and blue attire to stand in for the American flag. And throughout the performance, Lamar himself seemed to continually be coming toward the camera.
Two big questions going into the halftime performance: Would Kendrick himself edit out the many censurable words in his Pulitzer Prize-winning lyrics (he did); and would he deliver his sharpest diss lines to rival Drake (he mostly avoided them, though he did cut in pieces of “Euphoria” and “Not Like Us”).