Jay-Z Chooses Jay-Z to Be The 2027 Super Bowl Halftime Show Performer

BREAKING: Jay-Z has selected himself to perform at the 2027 Super Bowl halftime show, despite being the person responsible for helping choose the performers through his company, Roc Nation.

via: Puck

After weeks of handwringing, Jay-Z, the chief decision-maker on who plays the Super Bowl halftime show, has finally picked the artist who will take the stage in L.A. in February: himself. That’s according to multiple sources, who say the pick has long felt inevitable and more compelling than Miley Cyrus and Justin Bieber, both of whom were considered for SBLXI. Besides, a Jay-Z performance is the natural next step in the $5 million-a-year deal his Roc Nation signed with the NFL in 2019—and re-upped in 2024— to curate and produce the halftime show. The league re-upped that deal in 2024 for another five years. (Reps for the NFL and Roc Nation did not respond to a request for comment.)

Jay-Z, 56, feels like more of a consensus choice than last year’s performer, Bad Bunny, who had the audacity to be born in Puerto Rico, sing in Spanish, and preach a message of hemispheric unity. The billionaire rapper/entrepreneur is married to Beyoncé and boasts a deep catalog of hits that Gen X and Millennial fans know by heart. His longtime ties to Barack Obama—who helped induct him into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame in 2021—may draw criticism from the Fox News set, but that’s not necessarily a bad thing. Jay was hired by NFL commissioner Roger Goodell to make the halftime show cool and build goodwill with casual fans turned off by the P.R. spasms of the Colin Kaepernick era.

The 2027 game feels like the right timing for the Brooklyn rapper, who has been breaking attendance records at stadiums across North America as he celebrates the 30th anniversary of his debut, Reasonable Doubt, and the 25th anniversary of The Blueprint. In July, he grossed more than $42 million across three sold-out shows at Yankee Stadium. He crushed his May 30 headlining set at the 80,000-person Roots Picnic in Philadelphia (where he took some shots at Kaepernick), and last month he grossed $12 million from a sold-out crowd in Paris. His biggest feat, reuniting the Fugees last month at his two sold-out London shows at Tottenham Hotspur Stadium, is the type of TV moment the Super Bowl halftime show is made for. And a Jay-fronted show would surely lean on his Rolodex, if not his marriage, to deliver those kinds of cameos. (Another sign he’s in legacy-burnishing mode: the eight-part, Rick Rubin–featuring documentary currently streaming on HBO.)