Being Seen

There is a moment—when all the noise of expectation, spectacle, and commercial grandeur dims—and something real, something electric, seizes the room. Kendrick Lamar’s Super Bowl 2025 halftime performance was that moment. A reckoning, a symphony of sight and sound, where culture did not merely exist but spoke—stood—was seen.

But to be seen is not always to be valued.

Lamar did not just perform; he unveiled. Through movement, cadence, and the careful orchestration of story, he wove history, identity, and urgency into a visual and sonic tapestry. The stage was not just a stage; it was a cipher, a coded transmission of ancestry, defiance, and affirmation.

Yet, the profound irony of his presence at this event—this engineered spectacle of capitalism, consumerism, and cultural commodification—cannot be ignored. It was a performance within a system that historically thrives on the use, misuse, and abuse of Black culture and Black bodies. A system that, time and time again, profits from appropriation while resisting full recognition.

The history of Black artistry in America is one of simultaneous celebration and exploitation, of undeniable creative influence coupled with economic and social erasure. Jazz, blues, hip-hop—all cultural movements birthed in struggle, only to be later sanitized, co-opted, and capitalized upon for mass consumption. The machine extracts the aesthetic but discards the struggle. It loves the rhythm, fears the revolution.

Lamar’s performance was a refusal to be commodified without commentary. Every visual, every sound, every gesture was intentional—a resistance to erasure, a reclamation of agency, a refusal to let the culture be diluted for convenience. He stood, adorned in deliberate symbolism—each detail a reference, a thesis, a conversation piece in motion. The choreography wasn’t just bodies moving in rhythm; it was memory, protest, and celebration animated in real time. The set design, an interplay of light and shadow, pulled from the streets and sanctuaries, from places unseen but deeply felt.

This was more than entertainment. It was a demand. To see. To recognize. To acknowledge.

For many, the power of being seen is a fleeting thing, an accident of attention. But for others, being seen is survival. Being seen is defiance. Being seen is existence given form. Yet, being seen in a world that profits from your visibility while denying your full humanity is both a gift and a paradox.

In the PhoenixIzzat Philosophy, we speak of the art of creative leadership as a means to co-create reality, to shape culture through intention and imagination. Kendrick’s performance embodied this principle—he was not waiting for permission to be understood. He created the space, occupied it fully, and in doing so, made it undeniable.

But we must also interrogate:

    •    What does it mean to be seen but not fully embraced?

    •    How do we reckon with a system that both amplifies and exploits, that both elevates and extracts?

    •    And if recognition comes only when it is profitable, is it truly recognition?

So, what did you see?

Where did it stretch you?

Where did it challenge you?

And if it made you uncomfortable, why?

To see something is not simply to witness it; it is to be confronted by it. To be asked what it moves within you. To be called to respond.

Kendrick Lamar’s performance was an act of cultural innovation, an exercise in radical visibility. A lesson in the power of presence.

Not just for him. Not just for Black culture.

For all who have ever felt erased, overlooked, or unheard.

It was a mirror.

And the only real question is: Did you see yourself? Or did you just consume the moment?