Oof What a Show! Notes on Kendrick Lamar's "The Revolution *Will* Be Televised"
RE: ATTENTION ECONOMY
Last week, I created this image I posted on my story, I still stand by it—even in the wake of Kendrick Lamar’s powerful proclamation “The revolution will be televised” during the NFL halftime show. And here’s why:
While I’ll unpack this, I fully acknowledge that others may have their own valid interpretations. But first, let’s look at history and origins. As I emphasized in my previous post, “Song of Solomon, BPP, and DEI/CRT,” our education of history and origins is the launchpad for contextualizing the present and guiding the future.
The Legacy of “The Revolution Will Not Be Televised”
Gil Scott-Heron’s spoken-word piece “The Revolution Will Not Be Televised” became a ubiquitous social justice anthem with multiple metaphorical interpretations. It critiques media, consumerism, and passive political engagement, arguing that revolution requires direct, real-life action.
Change happens in the streets and within communities—often in ways that feel small at first but can build into something greater through collective effort. It’s not something that can be fully captured on TV or, in today's terms/our generation's social media use and within the algorithmic information age. Revolution is not just spectacle; it requires active participation, organizing, and at times struggling through the barriers that come with it.
On a philosophical level, Scott-Heron’s message is also a call to mental and ideological awakening. It urges people to turn the knob within their thoughts—aligning their beliefs with action—challenging societies ingrained teachings to dismantle oppressive systems instead of passively consuming the dominant narrative.
Just as television and social media can hypnotize audiences into complacency—studies show that excessive screen time suppresses critical thinking. TV and social platforms lower beta waves (linked to alertness and active thought) while increasing theta waves (associated with daydreaming and mental passivity).
The Role of Media in Shaping Narratives
Additionally, media—whether traditional outlets like Fox News, MSNBC, and CNN or digital platforms governed by engagement algorithms—plays a major role in shaping public perception. While its primary function is to inform, it is also a business, driven by ratings, views, and interaction.
This creates a system that often rewards engagement over truth, where emotional reactions and controversy fuel visibility that can create echo chambers, manipulation through propaganda, or exploitive sensationalism. Figures like Trump, Kanye West, and Elon Musk have mastered this dynamic. Their incendiary rhetoric isn’t just a narcissistic personality trait—it’s a tactic. They understand that whether their words are based in fact or manipulation, it doesn’t even matter as long as it gets people talking. Trump says whatever wild things that come to mind that he may or may not believe, for votes; Kanye ramps up his antics to convert backlash into sales. The algorithm rewarded it and continues to do so. This is because if you get higher viewership or higher engagement it boosts your profile even if it's coming from people who are in opposition. That translates into figurative and monetary profit and that is the nature of our media today.
As someone who works in media, this isn’t to say that media is inherently bad—it remains a critical tool for spreading information or misinformation for that matter. But in an era of information overload, the sheer volume of narratives—whether accurate, distorted, sensationalized or sanitized—can paralyze action and deepen division. Flooding and overwhelming the system with fragmented content, and the rate at which we receive and transmit whether intentional or not, often dilutes the sense of urgency and agency to contribute to real-world change.
Kendrick’s Subversion of the Message
Kendrick Lamar takes Scott-Heron’s phrase and flips it on its head. Performing in front of millions—including people in power (yes especially that orange one)—he proclaims: “The revolution is about to be televised, you picked the right time but the wrong guy.”
Breaking Down the full Line:
“The revolution is about to be televised” – This subverts the original phrase, asserting that his personal revolution, and by extension his community’s, is now taking center stage and you are about to watch it happen.
“You picked the right time” – Not only is the Super Bowl halftime show one of the most-watched events in the world but during this current destabilized political landscape he is meeting this moment as the perfect time to make a/his statement
“But the wrong guy” – Kendrick refuses to merely be a pacifying object of entertainment like one might expect from a Super Bowl HalfTime show performance (remember this is what Gil Scott Heron critiqued in TV’s function to distract). And truthfully the Super Bowl does serve a function of entertainment and distraction. Thus, Lamar asserts he will not be used to distract from injustice. Instead, he will use his art to speak truth to power.
I’m not going to run through all of the ways Kendrick carries these points out in his performance but I will touch on a few:
Rather than allowing critics to control the narrative, Kendrick skillfully anticipates their playbook. Through symbolism—such as the satirical Uncle Sam (played by Samuel L. Jackson) attempting to silence and tone police him—he neutralizes common racist talking points before they can even take hold. The result is that his detractors are left with nothing to say except to call the performance “boring”, which reveals their frustration at getting beat at their own game (this also references his stage design). When every critique is already accounted for, what discussion can they even drum up? Therefore beating the media algorithm is part of his revolution. We should note that Kendrick had also done an ingenious job at anticipating the moves of his rap adversary.
Who is this for? While Kendrick can play the subverter he also serves as the great empowerer. Going back to Gil Scott Heron’s critiques– often the media speaks to an audience, and one must ask themselves who is the audience they’re speaking to? That is journalism 101 but not many people are conscious of how they fit into the assigned paradigm of who and what is being spoken to, which in media most often is directed for a white gaze and when it's not, there are those who harbor a sense of entitlement, either it flies over their head and they don’t care to understand or they become incensed, frustrated and retaliatory. When speaking of Revolution being televised, Kendrick is not just conscious of his media platform he’s conscious of his message and his intended audience.
His use of red, white, and blue in his costume further plays into this subversion (read more about my discussion of Red, White & Blue here).
Thus, Kendrick fulfills his mission of subversive protest and televised revolution— but he ends it by chanting his track:
“Turn This TV Off.”
And while this may be interpreted as a metaphorical mic drop moment it’s also a “turning the knob” directive at awakening our collective consciousness and guiding that towards action.
“I just acted out my revolution—this is your sign to go and act out yours”
“I had the audacity to provoke, now go have the audacity to evoke”
“Stop getting caught in the cycle of letting the media dictate your response, lock into something tangible and beat them at their own game”
At the end of the day, everyone contributes to the revolution in different ways. There is no revolution without information, and social media has been an invaluable tool for collective outreach and movement-building. But we must also recognize how these tools shape the way we engage and who is controlling the broadcast systems and how our information is used. Things like our data being mined, being shadow-banned, the reward systems, oligarchies in control etc.
Will the Revolution be televised/algorized? Maybe, but only if you find a way to control that shit and not let it control you.
Kendrick’s performance is a reminder of Gil Scott Herons message:
Activism isn’t just consumable, it's transformational and you can’t just watch change happen, you have to be in the drivers seat to be part of it.