Photo: Getty Images
An unplanned protest involving the Palentian and Sudanese conflicts made an unexpected appearance during Kendrick Lamar's Super Bowl Halftime.
On Sunday (February 9), Kendrick rocked the Super Bowl halftime stage, performing his Grammy Award-winning diss track "Not Like Us," tracks from his latest album, GNX, and his hits with special guest, SZA.
The performance was filled with deliberate symbolism, including Samuel Jackson acting as "Uncle Sam" and Serena Williams crip walking to Lamar's Drake diss, but one protestor holding the Palestinian and Sudanese flags popped up unplanned.
The protestor stood atop a Buick Grand National, a nod to Lamar's GNX album, wearing black sweats as he unveiled the flags, which had the words "Sudan" and Gaza" on them with a heart and solidarity fist. In a group of dancers, the man jumped down from the car and ran around the stage's perimeter before being tackled by security.
The NFL said the protestor, who was a member of a 400-person field cast for the halftime show, had hidden the flags on him, per Time Magazine.
“No one involved with the production was aware of the individual’s intent,” the league said in a statement.
Roc Nation also released a statement, saying the demonstration was “neither planned nor part of the production and was never in any rehearsal.”
The protestor was detained and awaits charges. He has also been banned from future NFL events, the league said.
Sunday's demonstration during Kendrick's performance came amid the ceasefire between Israel and Hamas and the Sudanese civil war between the paramilitary group RSF and the Sudanese military.
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