Jay-Z will headline the Super Bowl halftime show at SoFi Stadium in Inglewood, California, the NFL, Apple Music and Roc Nation have announced.
The rapper’s selection marks a change of role after years spent helping to shape the event’s entertainment. Roc Nation has partnered with the NFL since 2019 to advise on and produce the league’s entertainment presentations, including the halftime show.
The announcement was accompanied by a short video showing Jay-Z sitting inside SoFi Stadium surrounded by goats, alongside the caption: “GOAT’s out of the bag.”
Jay-Z, whose real name is Shawn Carter, recently returned to the stadium to close his “Jay-Z 30” concert run. The series began with three performances at Yankee Stadium in New York, continued in London and concluded in Southern California.
His decision to perform at the Super Bowl comes seven years after he initially rejected the possibility. When discussing Roc Nation’s partnership with the NFL, Jay-Z said he had told commissioner Roger Goodell: “If this is about me performing at the Super Bowl, then we can just end this conversation now.”
Jay-Z’s career and Super Bowl connections
Jay-Z has won 25 Grammy Awards from 89 nominations, the second-highest total in the history of the awards behind his wife, Beyoncé, who has performed at two Super Bowls.
His best-known work includes the albums “Reasonable Doubt”, “The Blueprint” and “The Black Album”, as well as songs including “Hard Knock Life (Ghetto Anthem)”, “99 Problems” and “Empire State of Mind”, his collaboration with Alicia Keys. “Reasonable Doubt”, released in 1996, was inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame last year.
Beyond performing, Jay-Z co-founded Roc-A-Fella Records and established Roc Nation in 2008. The company works with artists and athletes, reflecting his wider involvement in music publishing, artist management and sport.
He became the first rapper inducted into the Songwriters Hall of Fame in 2017 and joined the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame in 2021. The most recent Super Bowl halftime show was performed by Bad Bunny, whose songs saw a sharp rise across streaming charts and music discovery platforms after the performance.
