Kendrick Lamar’s Super Bowl LIX performance has generated a lot of online chatter, and surprisingly, not all of it has to do with Drake. When the Grammy-winning rapper took the stage for the halftime show, the stage itself took the form of a tic-tac-toe board–but X’s and O’s were accompanied by a triangle and a square, which were meant to evoke the aesthetic of a “PlayStation-style controller,” according to the show’s coordinators and set designers. The idea–which Lamar personally dreamed up–was meant to represent the rapper’s life as though it were a video game.
“I think the was symbolic, his way to reach young people,” art director Shelley Rodgers told Wired. “A lot of it is showing his journey, [showing him] traveling through the American dream.”
Kendrick Lamar’s Super Bowl halftime show set was inspired by the PlayStation controller, show’s art director says
“Each performance space was shaped like a button on a PlayStation-style controller, a performance intended to portray Lamar’s life as a video game.”
Via: @WIRED pic.twitter.com/OhQZmjTWEM
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Creative director Mike Carson added that Lamar and his production company, pgLang, are “really into keeping things clean and minimal.”