Allow Me to Reintroduce Myself

According to Dave Brooks’s reporting in Puck, the search for the next Super Bowl halftime performer has reached a decision. Miley Cyrus and Justin Bieber were among the artists considered. Jay-Z, whose Roc Nation advises the NFL on the selection, reportedly had someone else in mind. The booking remains unconfirmed.

Consider the possibilities. A changing audience. A new generation of fans. An opportunity to put something progressive, energizing and unexpected on one of the world’s biggest stages. An entire industry of performers, any one of whom might turn those few minutes into the defining appearance of a career.

Who could meet that moment? Who could carry the culture forward? Who could make people look up from their phones and feel they were witnessing something they hadn’t already seen?

Take your time, Jay. Look everywhere.

Consider the reach. The catalogue. The sheer presence. Someone who could command that stage without being swallowed by it. Someone whose contribution to music you might, if pressed, describe as historic.

And then there is the question of trust. You need an artist whose judgment you respect. Whose vision you understand. Someone you can recommend without reservation, knowing they will appreciate the magnitude of the opportunity.

After considering what the world needed to hear, Jay-Z had a name.

Jay-Z.

The man will be fifty-seven by kickoff. There is nothing inherently wrong with a fifty-seven-year-old performing at the Super Bowl. There is something magnificent about searching for the future of entertainment and finding a man who happens to use the same toothbrush as you. Quite the contribution to the distinguished internet tradition of being deeply moved by your own selection.

And yes, he has the songs. Of course he has the fucking songs. That is what makes this such a luxurious act of self-indulgence. He can reportedly give himself the biggest booking in music and make anyone questioning the arrangement sound as though they’ve never heard The Blueprint. We have heard it, Jay. We would also have enjoyed hearing you tell yourself no.

Nobody is asking him to develop an inferiority complex. The man has earned the right to think highly of his work. But there is a considerable distance between believing you belong on that stage and being involved in choosing who gets it, then deciding the audience has waited long enough for you.

Imagine being another artist and learning that you lost out to Jay-Z. Perfectly respectable. Then imagine learning that the man who helped decide this was also Jay-Z. You could ask for feedback, although presumably it would be that you should have been Jay-Z.

The show could be excellent. The opening bars could do exactly what opening bars are supposed to do. People could leap off sofas. The catalogue could justify every minute. By Monday, anyone still discussing how he got the booking would be accused of refusing to enjoy themselves.

And there he would be, vindicated twice: once as the performer, once as the visionary who recognized his potential. A standing ovation for the artist would double as an outstanding performance review for the man involved in selecting him. Even the applause would be working two jobs for Jay-Z.

This is what makes the prospect so exquisitely irritating. We could enjoy every minute and still have watched a man interpret an enormous opportunity to look outward as a request to take stock of his own achievements. The world is changing. The audience is changing. Somewhere in all that movement, Jay-Z has reportedly located the urgent need for more Jay-Z.

By the final song, with the crowd singing along, he could almost make choosing himself look generous. All these people, having this wonderful time. All this happiness he would have denied them by exercising a little restraint.

He could have given the stage to somebody else. Just imagine how selfish that would have been.