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The rapper Jay-Z has been confirmed as the performer for the 2027 Super Bowl halftime show.
After mounting speculation, Jay-Z’s company Roc Nation, the NFL and Apple Music confirmed on Monday that the 99 Problems hit maker will be the featured performer.
Since 2019, Roc Nation has partnered with the NFL to advise and help to produce the league’s entertainment presentation, including the halftime show, which is one of the biggest moments in entertainment and pop culture every year.
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Jay-Z had previously not expressed an interest in performing in the NFL. On his and Beyoncé’s 2018 track Apesh*t he raps "I said no to the Super Bowl, you need me, I don’t need you."
The performance comes at a pivotal time for Jay-Z, who recently celebrated the 30th anniversary of his debut album Reasonable Doubt and has been on his first solo tour in nearly a decade.
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NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell said on Monday that he had long wanted Jay-Z to perform. "When we first reached an agreement with Roc Nation to produce the show, I had just one request: that JAŸ-Z take the stage himself one day," he said in a press release.
Newsweek has rounded up what we know so far.
Newsweek has reached out to Roc Nation for further comment outside of regular working hours.
What Jay-Z Has Said About Performing at the Super Bowl
"From Reasonable Doubt to standing on the Super Bowl Halftime stage, this has been a journey," Jay-Z said in a statement on Monday.
"Thirty years of music, work, and culture on the world's biggest stage. This run continues to be a dream come true," he added.
The New York native and 89-time Grammy nominee has been a key decision-maker in who will perform on football’s biggest stage since 2019.
Apple Music confirmed the news in a video shared to X that has been viewed over 7 million times as of reporting.
"GOAT’s out of the bag," the post read. In the video, Jay-Z sits alone in a stadium.
The video zooms out to show multiple goats.
In popular culture, the acronym GOAT means "Greatest of all time."
When is the 2027 Super Bowl Halftime Show?
The Super Bowl LXI is slated for Sunday, February 14, 2027.
It will be at SoFi Stadium in Inglewood, California.
What Songs Will Jay-Z Perform, Who Will He Bring Out?
In the lead up to Jay-Z being announced as the half-time performer, speculation was rife about who would be taking the stage, with Miley Cyrus and Justin Bieber among the names theorized.
But now that he has been confirmed as the performer, speculation has shifted to what the performance will entail.
Bets are already being placed on the trading exchange Kalshi on what he will open the performance with, with the top three contenders currently Song Cry (10 percent odds), Heart of the City (Ain’t No Love) (9 percent odds), Big Pimpin’ (8 percent).
And naturally, fans are speculating over whether Beyoncé will appear, particularly as the performance falls on Valentine’s Day.
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The pop superstar, who has been married to Jay-Z since 2008, has previously performed in two halftime shows, headlining in 2013 and performing with Coldplay and Bruno Mars in 2016.
On Christmas Day in 2024, she once again took the stage in her hometown of Houston in what has been commonly referred to as the "Beyoncé Bowl."
The pair have multiple songs together, including Crazy in Love and Drunk in Love.
And beyond this, Jay-Z has multiple hit collaboration songs, including Empire State of Mind with Alicia Keys, Umbrella with Rihanna and Suit and Tie with Justin Timberlake.
The content creator Joey (@gothamhiphop), who posts content about hip hop music, wrote in a post on X viewed over 70,000 times: "People are going to cry about Jay-Z headlining the Super Bowl but hypothetically he can bring out Beyoncé, Rihanna, Justin Timberlake, Alicia Keys, even Linkin Park (RIP Chester) and hit pretty much every demographic, it makes sense."
Who Has Performed at the Half-Time Show Since Roc Nation Partnered with the NFL?
Since Roc Nation and the NFL partnered in 2019, the following artists have performed at the Super Bowl halftime show:
- Shakira and Jennifer Lopez—2020
- The Weeknd—2021
- Dr Dre, Snoop Dogg, Eminem, Mary J. Blige, Kendrick Lamar—2022
- Rihanna—2023
- Usher—2024
- Kendrick Lamar—2025
- Bad Bunny—2026
How The Super Bowl Has Become a Culture War Flashpoint
The Super Bowl Halftime Show is a massive cultural event and generally draws more than 100 million viewers and provides mass global exposure for artists.
But the performance and the NFL more broadly have become a flashpoint in online culture wars over the past few years.
Earlier this year, there was significant backlash over the artist Bad Bunny, whose real name is Benito Antonio Martínez Ocasio, being chosen as the performer for the half time show.
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Though he is one of the most popular artists in the world and won the 2026 Grammy Award for Album of the Year for his album Debí Tirar Más Fotos, MAGA and conservatives took umbrage at the 31-year-old performing at the Super Bowl, due to his criticism of President Donald Trump and the Trump administration’s immigration policy.
TurningPoint USA, the conservative activist group led by co-founder Charlie Kirk until his death, announced it would host its own halftime show, or "All American Halftime Show," in response to this backlash. The group confirmed earlier in the year that they would proceed with a repeat alternative halftime show in 2027.
Culture war conversations around the Super Bowl may well continue in the lead-up to game day.
Contact Newsweek editors for this story: Robert Greenall and Rebecca Flood
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