Rihanna to perform at Super Bowl half-time show
It’s been confirmed that Rihanna will perform the coveted Super-Bowl halftime show in February 2023, four years after declining an invitation in 2019 out of solidarity with Colin Kaepernick.
The announcement was made on Sunday evening by the NFL. Rihanna revealed the news by posting an image on Instagram showing an outstretched arm holding an NFL football. “Rihanna is a generational talent, a woman of humble beginnings who has surpassed expectations at every turn,” said Jay-Z in a statement; the hip hop artist’s entertainment agency, Roc Nation, is an executive producer of the half-time show. “A person born on the small island of Barbados who became one of the most prominent artists ever. Self-made in business and entertainment.”
This year, the Super Bowl will take place at State Farm Stadium in Glendale, Arizona, on February 12th. After years of sponsorship from Pepsi, the upcoming halftime show will be sponsored by Apple Music.
Rihanna earlier mentioned that she turned down a similar opportunity for the 2019 Super Bowl, which was then headlined by Maroon 5. Many artists at the time voiced their support for Kaepernick, the former San Francisco 49ers quarterback who kneeled during the national anthem in 2016 to protest police brutality against Black people and minorities.
“I couldn’t dare do that. For what?” Rihanna told Vogue in 2019. “Who gains from that? Not my people. I just couldn’t be a sellout. I couldn’t be an enabler. There’s things within that organisation that I do not agree with at all, and I was not about to go and be of service to them in any way,” she said of the league.
Kaepernick accused the NFL of colluding to keep him out of the league, in a case that was eventually settled in early 2019. In 2019, the NFL partnered with Roc Nation (which manages Rihanna) to help pick performers for the Super Bowl, and strategise the half-time show. The widely acclaimed 2022 show featured Dr. Dre, Snoop Dogg, Eminem, Kendrick Lamar and Mary J. Blige.
Rihanna last performed publicly at the 2018 Grammy’s and it’s now been six years since the release of her last album, Anti.
