"Living in America"

The Superbowl with all its massive, comely, gladiator-like pageantry has become the favored American past time over baseball for some years now. It sits central in its position to the crowning jewels of empire. “Rome is the mob” and we are part of that mob, excitable, unruly, sunken in admiration, but never truly far from violence and attacks. We are central to the show as spectators, it depends upon us, a crude bit of escapism, beautiful, graceful, and (though we would like to forget) deadly. As the undisputed champion of capital by way of entertainment, it's ability to relay, convey messaging to a concentrated mass concentrated on the screen goes unsurpassed in America, and because of that, it is able to round up obscene amounts of money -mostly from charging for time slots during it's near four hour run time. For those four hours, even in this attention deficit economy, you have as close as one can get to the undivided attention of nearly 100 million people. It is into this great arena that one Kendrick Lamar Duckworth arrives.

It was into a similar (albeit make-believe) arena that one “Apollo Creed” arrived in 1985’s “Rocky IV”. Boxing events of the stature portrayed in the film ( the sport still in its exceptional heyday) were arguably thee sporting event of the time. The amount of eyes on you in those moments of Duran/Leonard, Hagler/ Hearns etc were nearly incomparable.. save for the Superbowl. In the films text; from it's animated glove opening - to its depiction of the Soviet Union and their unfavorable caricatures - this is a battle of values. Communism vs capitalism, the individual vs an almost hive-like mind state where Drago speaks through three people, but Rocky and Creed speak for themselves, and yet Creed is more alone than he thinks, both in and out of text. I would argue Kendrick Lamar believes he's more alone than he actually is, more connected and desirous of entry to Americana and the American project than he would like us to believe.

As I watched Kendricks lively, thoughtful, supremely well executed performance, I kept coming back to this image of Apollo Creed draped in this tapestry of Americana for his exhibition match against Ivan Drago - the supreme leader of the Soviet insurgency of robotic doom that threatens the United States. I thought it was merely aesthetics at first, but it felt deeper than just surface optics, and the more I thought about it, the more commercials for the American industrial military complex, consumer goods, and Jesus, the more clear it became as to why. Whether in the pocket of industry, spectacle, violence as Kendrick’s performance in real life, or as Creed in-script, both are firmly in and under the gaze and influence of whiteness, of empire, and of Americana. Kendrick represents industry, spectacle, and violence, as well. The show mentions and shouts out optical representations of the things he criticizes, and of course - Jesus is there too. Any attempt at subversion is controlled, impeded, buffered by the ultimate authority of “script writer” be they the oligarchy of America or Sylvester Stallone. “Uncle Sam”, “You picked the right time, but the wrong guy”, “Do you really know how to play the game?” followed by lyrics that invoke Kendrick’s impoverished beginnings (“I remember syrup sandwiches and crime allowances”) act as a reply that imply clearly - he does know the game! It is a recognition of the game and it's import regardless of how you may or may not value playing it in the first place. It certainly isn't bold enough to suggest that being involved with “the game” at all is worth questioning, or even worse tearing down altogether.

To Apollo Creed the event was a safety net for his falling, failing ego. The appropriation of Americana acts as an acknowledgement of what he had accomplished, where he had arrived, his power, his influence, his (supposed) acceptance, and yes a bit of "in your face". For Kendrick (and though I want to stay on topic -Beyoncé in Cowboy Carter) the motivations on display are not as different as it would seem; the spectacle was again acknowledgement of his power, his influence, (though his is meant to show how little he cares for assimilation or acceptance with an even healthier dollop of “in your face”) but those values espoused in the presentation; self-made man, individual representation as evidence of freedom for the masses, formations that resemble armies, the garb of imperial authority, don't actually undermine the principles of empire. Now, while I don't agree that in context they necessarily sell them either, they are certainly not a “televised revolution”. Both exhibitions in context and out of context of the films text, and the unwritten code of conduct for this particular grand spectacle of sport are portrayed as blasphemous and unsightly. Where Kendrick intentionally adds that unsightly element, Apollo does not, but Stallone does, and further reinforces it by his usage of the camera which gazes at the event in four-course disdain, with a tad bit of admiration as an unhealthy desert. Balboa and his wife share looks of disapproval that mirror his earlier remark at the press conference that Apollo was “too loud”- something “Uncle Sam” reiterates in his “condemnation” (“Too loud, too reckless”) of Kendrick's performance to that point. Apollo’s actions were also seen as reckless and unnecessary, and his punishment is swift and unequivocal. He dies for his audacity. The subtext is that this is the price of his foolishness, his arrogance. The commentary that can be read from that is that his true foolishness lied in believing he could co-opt what was never meant for him, there in the ring on full display for everyone to see lies the body of his futile project. Lamar’s thirteen or so minutes of mastery and craftsmanship were far more effective as a spectacle than as a disruptive piece of art. Though not a 1-1 of Stallone's own version of events, they bear far too many similarities to be ignored. How much can one truly be bucking the system if your vision looks so much like theirs? Lamar’s initial response after the announcement was “Rap music is still the most impactful genre to date, and I'll be there to remind the world why they got the right one”. After what we saw, where Kendrick sees that impact best used is clear, and it is not in the spirit of the words of James Baldwin who once said “Any real change implies the breakup of the world as one has always known it, the loss of all that gave one an identity, the end of safety”. The loss of all that gave one identity.. Pausing for a moment- encapsulates all that could've been accomplished, and all that was for naught in the execution of Kendrick's show and the undertaking itself. Though the “Uncle Sam”, and other such refurbishings of Americana suddenly so popular in black art are provocative, and certainly get an entertaining rise out of white folks who have reserved it for themselves only, it is still representative of a desire to be seated at a table that with any real sense of justice should be destroyed. Kendrick is still at the Superbowl, Apollo was still a character in Stallone's fantasy. The Americana; inverted or tainted is still Americana, despite the appearance of “Uncle Sam” or James Brown to give us a sense of a “blackening”. The commercials are still there, Apple’s name is still on the halftime show, and no disruption too unpalatable took place on camera. Whatever their goals - assimilation, or expulsion, proof of existence, or death wish, the end result is the same. The movie carries on, the game (figurative and literal) carries on, the script writers can only be disrupted by a “breakup of the world as one has always known it” and Kendrick and Apollo's performances were more an example of the latter part of Baldwins quote; “At such a moment, unable to see and not daring to imagine what the future will now bring forth, one clings to what one knew, or dreamed that one possessed.” In the end, Kendrick was right, they did pick “the right one”.