Rihanna performs during the halftime show of Super Bowl LVII in Glendale, Arizona, on February 12, ... [+]
Rihanna becomes the latest Black woman musician to perform on the world’s biggest stage. As anticipated, she delivered a spectacular halftime performance at Super Bowl LVII. The nine-time Grammy Award winner sang a dozen of her biggest hits, including Umbrella, Pour it Up, Rude Boy, Diamonds, and Work.
According to Billboard, Rihanna has fourteen #1 songs and 30 on its top-ten list. She dazzled the crowd in Glendale, Arizona, along with millions more who watched this year’s Super Bowl on television. Perhaps most impressively, she also increased the halftime performance roster’s racial and gender diversity.
Rihanna is now part of an elite sorority that includes Patti LaBelle, Diana Ross, Janet Jackson, Beyoncé, Missy Elliott, Mary J. Blige, and other Black women entertainers who’ve either headlined or been prominently featured on prior Super Bowl stages. In 1972, Ella Fitzgerald became the first. Why is this important? Because Rihanna and other Black women work in an industry that is dominated by white executives and by men (few of whom are Black). This is one of the most persistent and pervasive problems in the music business.
Also, according to the Recording Academy, the group that decides which music artists receive Grammy awards each year, 69% of its members are men and 67% are white, which is an improvement since the implementation of its new membership model four years ago. They’ve nominated Rihanna for 33 Grammy Awards.
Before Jay Z and Roc Nation began partnering with the NFL in 2019, too few Black musicians were being showcased on the Super Bowl halftime stage. Last year’s performance, an ode to west coast hip hop, signified a shift. It was a massive tribute to Dr. Dré and featured many artist whose music he’d produced. It was amazing. The one critique I offered in Ebony magazine was that Mary J. Blige was the only woman to grace the stage in last year’s show alongside Dre, Snoop, Kendrick Lamar, Eminem, and 50 Cent. This year, Rihanna was the sole artist, accompanied by dozens of incredibly talented dancers across genders.
Forbes breaking news reporter Marisa Dellatto explained why Rihanna didn’t get paid for her halftime performance – nor did Beyoncé, Bruno Mars, Justin Timberlake, Lady Gaga, The Weeknd, and other A-list music megastars, she noted. The exposure makes it worth it. In Rihanna’s case, it wasn’t just exposure for herself, but also for other talented Black women who’ve been historically and contemporarily denied performance opportunities of this magnitude.
It's terrific that Rihanna was this year’s Super Bowl halftime feature. It’s also great that she delivered such a solid performance, especially as the first-known pregnant woman (Black or otherwise) to headline the show, People magazine reports. It’s also commendable that she and a handful of other Black women have gotten a chance to showcase their talents to the world.
But certainly Rihanna and all the Black women who’ve preceded her would agree that greater racial and gender diversity is needed on the Super Bowl halftime stage, in the show’s production roles, at executive leadership tables where decisions are made about who the headliners will be in future years, among Recording Academy members, and in leadership roles all throughout their industry. And while the halftime performance is unpaid, surely Rihanna and her same-race, same-gender predecessors would advocate for paying Black women equitably in every music industry role that involves compensation. They cannot and shouldn’t be expected to do this alone. Black women deserve to have Black men, as well as people across all racial groups and genders, also advocating for equity and inclusion on their behalf.
