The confetti has long settled, the Gatorade’s dried up, and the Eagles are back in Philly to celebrate their Super Bowl LIX victory over the Kansas City Chiefs. The game is over, but the halftime show’s impact remains as the world continues to ruminate over rapper and 22-time Grammy award winner Kendrick Lamar’s halftime performance.

Ahead of his Super Bowl halftime show, Kendrick Lamar promised us “storytelling”, and he certainly did not let us down. While the show has been criticized by some, it can’t be denied that he had a story to tell, and like the poet he is, he told it beautifully. This particular story was about Black Americans and their history in the United States. He told that story alongside a large crew of all-Black performers.

While some of his messages were loud and clear (“Hey, Drake!”), others were a lot more subtle. Here are some of the ones you may have missed.

5 hidden messages in Kendrick Lamar’s Super Bowl LIX halftime show

Uncle Sam was also Uncle Tom

As Samuel L. Jackson appeared as Kendrick Lamar’s emcee, it was pretty obvious who he was supposed to represent, by the way he was dressed in a red, white, and blue suit and top hat, and because he told us he’s been called “Uncle” - not too hard to piece together that he’s supposed to be Uncle Sam. Of course, the Black version.

However, as the show went on, Jackson began to represent a different “uncle” in American history. Harriett Beecher Stowe wrote the anti-slavery novel “Uncle Tom’s Cabin” in 1852. Uncle Tom became a term for Black Americans who turn their back on the Black community to instead serve white Americans. Jackson turned into a representation of a typical Uncle Tom with his comments during the show.

During Lamar’s performance, Jackson told him he was “too loud, too reckless, too ghetto” - stereotypes that are often associated with Black Americans.

The revolution is about to be televised

Early on in the halftime show, Lamar spoke these words:

“The revolution is about to be televised; You picked the right time but the wrong guy.”

This line is a reference to a poem written by Gil Scott-Heron in 1971 called “The Revolution Will Not Be Televised”. The poem argues that change will comes from the actions of individuals rather than corporations, and that we won’t see acts of violence and racism in the media.

Lamar’s “wrong guy” line may reference President Donald Trump, who was in attendance at the game on Sunday. Lamar has been a vocal critic of Trump, with lines about him in several of his songs, including “The Heart Part 4″ and “XXX”.

The cultural divide in America

The image of the American flag, again, was pretty obvious. Lamar’s dancers were dressed in red, white, and blue, and clearly made out the image of the flag. But at another point in the show, the dancers bent down and lifted their backs in the air, a potential message that the country was built on the backs of Black slaves. The dancers then separated into two distinct groups on either side of Lamar, showing a clear divide, while he sang these words:

“It’s a cultural divide, I’ma get it on the flo’

Forty acres and a mule, this is bigger than the music

Yeah, they tried to rig the game but you can’t fake influence,”

That made the message much clearer - the divided flag was a symbol for the cultural and political divide in the United States right now.

Speaking of 40 acres and a mule...

In the second line of that last song, Lamar’s message “40 acres and a mule, this is bigger than the music” references the promise that Union General William T. Sherman made to Black Americans after slavery had ended - that each former enslaved family would receive 40 acres of land, which was never fulfilled.

Serena Williams' controversial dance

The immediate takeaway from the appearance of tennis legend Serena Williams in Lamar’s performance was that it was another diss on rapper Drake, whom Lamar wrote a Grammy-winning diss track about, and which he happened to be performing when Williams, who happens to be Drake’s ex, started dancing along...to his diss track.

But of course, as you’re starting to understand, it wasn’t just about that as the message is never just that obvious. The type of dance Williams was doing is called “crip walking”, a move created by the predominantly Black gang in California called the Crips. Williams performed that same dance at the 2012 London Olympics when she beat Maria Sharapova in a lopsided victory. She was criticized for the dance, with people calling it “crass” and “tasteless” and accusing her of glamorizing gun violence.

Williams posted a video about Sunday’s experience saying this:

“Man, I did not crip walk like that at Wimbledon. Ooh, I would’ve been fined!”

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