00:00A revolution by the means of hip-hop should be at the right time, but the right time is now.
00:05Man, I'm so happy for him overall, man. That's a bad man.
00:08And when you look at an artist like Kendrick, in terms of the talent to be able to execute in a way that very few artists, let alone hip-hop artists, can,
00:15and it's a production and a musical performance that isn't just about understanding music and art,
00:23then how do you display it for broadcast and in media in a way that makes sense on a global scale?
00:29We were on the field and behind the scenes with the creators to find out the real story of Kendrick Lamar's epic halftime show at Super Bowl LII.
00:38That's why we came.
00:40We take you there in Billboard All Access.
00:43Oh, hell yeah, man. Come on, man. I'm humble, just like him. And I hope that's what he opens up with.
00:49The passion I have now is still the passion I had then. And I think that carried on to the Super Bowls.
01:00For this year with Kendrick Lamar, we announced him the first weekend of the season.
01:04We already have a set playground for them to play in.
01:07So when they come with their ideas, they're not coming with staging ideas that can't fit through the tunnel.
01:14And then shortly after that, his creative team, Dave Free, Mike Carson, a few weeks later,
01:19came to us with the initial seeds of what they wanted to do narratively.
01:28Before the Cali legend began the biggest performance of his life, all his celeb fans were excited.
01:33Oh, my God. He's gonna fucking kill it. Oh, can I cuss? I don't know. He's gonna kill it.
01:37Kendrick is a beast. He's a master. I know he's gonna do great.
01:39Of course. I love Kendrick. Love LA.
01:41I'm excited. I hope I see SZA.
01:44Kendrick putting on for the city. And this is awesome. He's badass.
01:47He got love all throughout the world, not just the West Coast, but he got the West Coast love.
01:52And that's really the most important when you got love at home.
01:59One of the biggest limiting factors that doesn't change year over year is just the amount of time that we have to set up the show.
02:06This concept that the PG Lang came to us with is, frankly, one of the biggest, most expansive shows that we've had
02:12in terms of just amount of the field that it covers.
02:15And so ultimately, we really did have to sit down and work through over the months and weeks leading up to the game
02:21to say, how do we build this in the seven and a half minutes that we have
02:24and ultimately strike it in the six minutes after the show?
02:27And it was a spectacle.
02:35We knew from the very beginning that Kendrick and Dave Free were looking at this as a narrative
02:41and a story or at least a real idea from start to finish about the video gamified version of Kendrick's journey through the American dream.
02:49And so we knew there would be a narrator when it comes to recognizable voices,
02:55true iconic figures and an artist in his own right, like Samuel L. Jackson.
02:59Of course, we were nothing but excited and energized once we knew it was him.
03:02And he was joined by superstar SZA.
03:11It really did feel like a natural fit.
03:14And that's something that they brought to us midseason.
03:17I want to say about November as a real idea.
03:20And with her, it really did just fit seamlessly into the overall creative that they were putting together.
03:25There are so many layers to the involvement of Serena.
03:28But first and foremost, her just being from Compton, being somebody in Kendrick's world.
03:33Obviously, she's had her own experience on a global stage like that.
03:38And frankly, with dance moves like that as well.
03:41But at the end of the day, that comes from Kendrick and the PG Lang team.
03:45And another iconic figure in their own right to add to the show that I know only helped drive the conversation even further.
03:58When we look at it, not only being the first solo hip hop artist to do this,
04:03to me, it was also one of the most current artists,
04:06especially when not only in winning all those Grammys the week before
04:09and how much he's dominated the conversation the past year,
04:12but also just the number of tracks from within the past year certainly is unique for a Super Bowl.
04:18Hearing that Mustard from the Super Bowl field.
04:20I hope he performs that. If he performs that, oh my God.
04:22We need him on the thing.
04:23Right, you need to be on there.
04:24I would love that. But even if I'm not and he performs it, I'll be just as happy.
04:28And Mustard said hi to us right before joining K.Dot himself.
04:33I knew that song was going to be in the show.
04:35It was my first thought.
04:37Obviously, we expect him to be there.
04:39But the same way that all these other artists came together,
04:42it's not until Kendrick and Tony, his musical director, and Dave Free tell us
04:48that this is what they'd like to do creatively.
04:50Once that came to us, it was another one that made complete sense.
04:54And of course, we're doing TV Off. You got to have Mustard there.
04:57That's my team, man.
05:0030 incredible individuals.
05:04Five extraordinary executives that work day in, day out
05:09to make sure we are doing something that will long live the culture.
05:14I don't know what he's going to do.
05:16But I know that he's going to end it.
05:19We're not like us.
05:25I know that there was a lot of conversation about Halftime
05:28and would it be a New Orleans artist and how would we represent the city.
05:31And ultimately, when I think about what music means to a city like New Orleans,
05:36it's about art for the sake of art.
05:38True artists who are there for their love of performance
05:42and to be able to express themselves through art.
05:45I don't know if there's any artist that represents that more than Kendrick Lamar.
05:58We got to see him just seconds after he finished.
06:00And all we can say is congrats, Kendrick Lamar.
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