"The revolution 'bout to be televised. You picked the right time, but the wrong guy."
\"They tried to rig the game, but you can't fake influence\"
Kendrick Lamar's Super Bowl performance has been living rent-free in my head ever since I saw it.
Not just because Kendrick is incredibly talented, but because of the messages that continue to surface throughout his work.
Like many people, I initially assumed some of his statements were primarily tied to the long-running feud between him and Drake. But the more closely I listened to his lyrics, the more they seemed to point toward something much bigger.
That feeling only grew stronger when I learned that he opened the performance with a spin on Gil Scott-Heron's famous line, "The revolution will not be televised"—a poem often interpreted as a reminder that meaningful change requires participation rather than passive observation.
Listening from that perspective, while setting aside the media narratives surrounding any feuds, a lot of Kendrick's work started to land differently for me.
In "Not Like Us," he raps:
"Once upon a time all of us was in chains, homie still double down calling us some slaves."
And:
"The settlers was usin' townfolk to make 'em richer, fast forward, 2024, you got the same agenda."
References like these appear throughout much of his catalog. Combined with recurring themes such as "turn his TV off," and the broader conversations I've seen emerge through artists like Beyoncé and many others, they made me want to examine these ideas through a wider lens.
Because the same underlying dynamics Kendrick appears to be pointing toward are themes I've encountered across music, film, literature, and countless other forms of creative expression.
Where that exploration led me was to a much larger pattern—one involving the concentration of wealth, influence, attention, and power in ways that seem increasingly connected to nearly every aspect of modern life.
If anyone is interested, I wrote more about where that rabbit hole eventually led me.
The article itself is not about Kendrick. It's about where his words—and the words of many other artists—ultimately led me.