The eight most-watched television broadcasts in US history were Super Bowl games. Though viewership has slipped in recent years, the 2018 game still gathered 103.4 million people in front of their screens. It was the top-rated TV event of the year. The game’s glitzy halftime show has its own starry history. Over a half-century, performers have included a who’s who of pop music, from Bruce Springsteen, Diana Ross, and Prince, to Justin Timberlake, Lady Gaga, and Beyoncé. This year’s headliner, Maroon 5, can boast of three Grammy awards and millions of album sales, but it’s hardly the hot act of the moment. Cardi B, Rihanna, Jay-Z, and others apparently turned down the opportunity to star in the year’s biggest showcase to instead show support for Colin Kaepernick, former quarterback for the San Francisco 49ers. . Mr. Kaepernick, an African-American, became the eye of a public storm during the 2016 season when he knelt during the playing of the national anthem before NFL games to express his concern over incidents of racial injustice. But others saw the act as showing disrespect for the anthem and US flag. A cultural debate ensued. Today Kaepernick is no longer employed by an NFL team. That has led some to argue team owners won’t hire him because of his public political expression while working in an NFL event. An online petition asking Maroon 5 not to perform has received more than 110,000 signatures. But PJ Morton, the lone African-American member of Maroon 5, has defended the group’s appearance. “We can support being against police brutality against black and brown people and be in support of being able to peacefully protest and still do our jobs,” Mr. Morton has said. “We just want to have a good time and entertain people while understanding the important issues that are at hand.” Another African-American, the “Empress of Soul” Gladys Knight, has agreed to sing the national anthem at the game. “I understand that Mr. Kaepernick is protesting ... police violence and injustice,” she told Variety in a written statement. But “[i]t is unfortunate that our National Anthem has been dragged into this debate.... I pray that this National Anthem will bring us all together in a way never before witnessed and we can move forward and untangle these truths which mean so much to all of us.” Get the Monitor Stories you care about delivered to your inbox. Your email address By signing up, you agree to our Privacy Policy Perhaps in an effort to quiet the controversy, Maroon 5 did not give a traditional press conference this week. Instead, it announced it would join with the NFL and Interscope Records to make a $500,000 donation to Big Brothers Big Sisters of America. Travis Scott, an African-American rapper who will join Maroon 5 on stage at halftime, earlier pledged to donate in partnership with the NFL $500,000 to Dream Corps, a nonprofit social justice group with several initiatives, including prison reform. One thing is certain in 2019: The show (and the football game) will go on. Those protesting or boycotting will make their point that racial issues still need attention. The participating performers will respect the issues Kaepernick raises while not seeing a need to politicize a sports and entertainment event. And the necessary national conversation about the best ways to draw attention to and correct social wrongs will go on. The civility of the debate will help ensure civil rights.<doc-sep>On Sunday, February 3, more than 100 million Americans are expected to watch Super Bowl 53 and its halftime show. That kind of viewership means that most years, the halftime show is a coveted performance slot — but this year, it’s shrouded in controversy. Maroon 5 are set to perform, with Travis Scott and Big Boi making guest appearances. But all three acts were added to the slate late in the process, after multiple stars reportedly turned down the opportunity to appear during the halftime show. And both Maroon 5 and Travis Scott have fielded major backlash after announcing their performances. Here’s how the Super Bowl halftime show, an institution that was once the biggest showcase in American music, ended up begging for performers in 2019. The controversy over this year’s Super Bowl begins with Colin Kaepernick In 2016, Colin Kaepernick was a backup quarterback for the San Francisco 49ers. After speaking with a former NFL player who had served as a Green Beret, he decided that he would no longer stand during the singing of the national anthem before games. Instead, in a silent act of protest against police shootings of unarmed black Americans, he would kneel. “I am not going to stand up to show pride in a flag for a country that oppresses black people and people of color,” he said. Slowly, other NFL players joined the protest, and conservative outrage mounted in response. Kneeling athletes, argued some on the right, were disrespecting the American flag, and by extension American veterans. Some conservatives urged a general NFL boycott. President Trump chimed in, with rhetoric that amplified the already charged racial politics surrounding the protest. “You know what’s hurting the game: when people like yourselves turn on television,” he said at a rally with mostly white attendees in September 2017, “and you see those people” — meaning the mostly black athletes of the NFL — “taking the knee when they are playing our great national anthem.” That October, Vice President Mike Pence walked out of a game when players knelt during the anthem. The NFL at first supported its players, saying that they were encouraged but not required to stand during the playing of the national anthem. But as outrage mounted, the league changed its tune. After becoming a free agent in the spring of 2017, Colin Kaepernick was not offered a contract from any team in the league. (He has since filed an official grievance against the NFL, saying it colluded to keep him from working.) And in May 2018, the NFL announced a new policy. Now players would be expected to stand for the anthem if they were on the sidelines but were given the option of remaining in the locker room instead. If they protested, they would be fined. The policy was wildly unpopular, and last fall, the NFL announced that it would no longer enforce it. (Athletes have knelt in protest this season without consequence.) Kaepernick, however, remains off the field. Rihanna, always a trendsetter, reportedly turned down the Super Bowl halftime gig. Others followed suit. Rumblings that the 2019 Super Bowl halftime show would be unusual first began to surface in the fall, when reports emerged that the NFL had offered the headlining spot to Rihanna and she declined. Reportedly, she cited Kaepernick in her reasoning. “The NFL and CBS really wanted Rihanna to be next year’s performer in Atlanta,” a source told Us Weekly in October. “They offered it to her, but she said no because of the kneeling controversy. She doesn’t agree with the NFL’s stance.” According to Entertainment Tonight, the NFL also reached out to Pink, but she turned them down too, when contract negotiations dragged on too long. Eventually, reports emerged that Maroon 5 would perform at the Super Bowl. And before the story was ever confirmed by either the NFL or Maroon 5, thousands of people signed a Change.org petition calling on the group to drop out. “Kaepernick risked his career to take a knee for equality, and the NFL punished him for it,” wrote petition starter Vic Oyedeji. “Until the league changes their policy and support players’ constitutional right to protest, no artists should agree to work with the NFL. Join me in asking Maroon 5 to drop out of the 2019 Super Bowl halftime show.” The petition currently has over 110,000 signatures. “I think it would be cool if [Maroon 5] backed out of super bowl like [Rihanna] Did,” wrote comedian Amy Schumer on Instagram. She added that she was refusing to appear in any Super Bowl commercials for 2019. (Schumer did not say whether she was offered any commercials this year, but she’s done Super Bowl commercials in the past, including a Bud Light commercial with Seth Rogen in 2016.) “I know opposing the nfl is like opposing the nra,” she wrote. “Very tough, but don’t you want to be proud of how you’re living?” “You know, I think that when you look back at every single halftime show, people just can’t — it’s this like insatiable urge to hate a little bit,” Maroon 5 frontman Adam Levine told Entertainment Tonight of the controversy. “I’m not in the right profession if I can’t handle a little bit of controversy. It’s what it is. We expected it. We’d like to move on from it.” In the wake of the controversy, Maroon 5 were reportedly desperate for an artist of color to perform with As the Super Bowl approached with no sign of a guest performer, rumors emerged that Maroon 5 were desperate to find someone, ideally an artist of color, to perform with them, and they couldn’t get anyone to say yes. In December, Variety reported that the band had reached out to “more than a half-dozen stars” to join them for the halftime show, including André Benjamin (a.k.a. André 3000 of Outkast), Mary J. Blige, Usher, Lauryn Hill, and Nicki Minaj. But every last one, Variety reported, said no.<doc-sep>As controversy continues to swirl around the Super Bowl LIII Halftime Show, Pink Floyd’s Roger Waters is calling upon Maroon 5, Travis Scott and Big Boi to take a knee during the big televised event in solidarity with Colin Kaepernick. Maroon 5 has been the subject of immense backlash after agreeing to be the headlining act for this year’s Halftime Show. Many in the music community believed the band should turn down the event due to the treatment the NFL gave to the former 49ers quarterback, who knelt during the National Anthem in an effort to protest police violence and misconduct. Kaepernick was made a free agent and subsequently not picked up by any team. He’s currently embattled in a lawsuit with the NFL, alleging that the teams colluded to keep him off the field. ROGER WATERS CALLS FOR ISRAEL TO 'END THE OCCUPATION,' SLAMS TRUMP AT DESERT TRIP Waters took to Facebook earlier this week shortly after it was revealed that Maroon 5 would be skipping the traditional pre-show press conference at the big game on Sunday. The musician shared a video from his gig in Hartford, Connecticut on Sept. 24, 2017 where he and his band knelt in solidarity during their show. “We did it in solidarity with San Francisco Quarterback Colin Kaepernick’s gesture of protest against the endemic racism and often deadly force meted out by police departments across this land. It was the third Sunday of Colin Kaepernick’s lock out by the NFL. The message was clear, ‘Shut your mouth, boy!’ Next Sunday will be the 36th Sunday he has been locked out of your national game,” Waters wrote in the video’s caption. “This is not a victory for the NFL, it is a defeat, you have denied football fans everywhere the pleasure and the honor of watching one of the greatest quarterbacks who ever played the game, and you have shown your true colors.” He continued: “You can sit in your boardrooms and huff and puff on your cigars in your glass boxes, but your action is a poke in the eye for everything that is decent in America. Colin Kaepernick is an American hero. If the USA is to have a future, it is the Colin Kaepernicks of this world who will lead you there, in fact, it is Colin Kaepernick who is leading you now.” MAROON 5 MAY BE THE BAND TO GIVE INTO 'SPONGEBOB' FANS DURING THE SUPER BOWL The star concluded his lengthy plea by speaking directly to the three performers that agreed to do the show. Maroon 5, Big Boi and Travis Scott, who reportedly only agreed to do the show after the NFL donated $500,000 to Dream Corps, are the only acts expected during the event. Waters asked them to take a knee on the stage in front of the world to show their support of Kapernick and hold the NFL accountable. “My colleagues Maroon 5, Travis Scott and Big Boi are performing during the halftime show at the Super-bowl this coming Sunday, I call upon them to ‘take a knee’ on stage in full sight. I call upon them to do it in solidarity with Colin Kaepernick, to do it for every child shot to death on these mean streets, to do it for every bereaved mother and father and brother and sister,” Waters wrote. “My mother used to say to me, ‘In any situation there is nearly always a right thing to do, just do it.’ So, there you go my brothers, you are faced with a choice, I’m not saying it will be easy, all the Presidents men, all the huffers and puffers, will be royally pissed off, but, $#@%’em, I call upon you to do it because it’s the right thing to do and because somewhere inside you know it.” So far only Maroon 5's frontman, Adam Levine, sat down with Entertainment Tonight to address the controversy ahead of the big game where he simply noted that he expected the controversy and backlash and tried to highlight the music and “silence all the noise.”<doc-sep>The controversy surrounding Super Bowl LIII’s halftime show continues, as Colin Kaepernick’s attorney Mark Geragos called Maroon 5 frontman Adam Levine’s rationalization on his participation “a cop out.” Speaking on Good Morning America on Friday, Geragos called on Levine to admit what he’s doing by appearing in the NFL Super Bowl halftime. “If you’re going to cross this idealogical or intellectual picket line, then own it, and Adam Levine certainly isn’t owning it,” Geragos said. “It’s a cop-out when you start talking about, ‘I’m not a politician; I’m just doing the music.’ Most of the musicians who have any kind of consciousness whatsoever understand what’s going on here.” Geragos was responding to comments Levine made on Thursday in an Entertainment Tonight interview, where he said, “No one put more thought and love into this than I did…I spoke to many people. Most importantly, though, I silenced all the noise and listened to myself, and made my decision about how I felt.” Levine added: “We’d like to move on from it and…speak through the music.” He seemed to promise that his show would acknowledge the protests against the NFL, which include national anthem kneelers and Kaepernick’s apparent ban from the league for being the initial leader of the kneeling movement. “They will be [heard] — that’s all I want to say because I don’t want to spoil anything,” Levine said. “And once again, I like to think that people know where I stand as a human being after two decades doing this…I’m not a public speaker. I do speak, but it’s through the music. My life’s work and what I put out into the universe has been positive and hopefully inspiring … So, what I would say is, you know, we are going to do what we keep on doing, hopefully without becoming politicians and continuing to use the one voice we know how to use properly.”<doc-sep>
Advertising Read more New York (AFP) The US Super Bowl halftime show, one of pop music's most visible gigs, this year went from highly coveted to largely unwanted, leaving the NFL scrambling for takers as a cultural firestorm over social justice rages. Prominent artists including Rihanna, P!nk and Cardi B reportedly turned down the offer to headline Sunday's championship game between the New England Patriots and Los Angeles Rams, amid the controversy over racially charged police brutality protests spearheaded by former San Francisco 49ers quarterback Colin Kaepernick. When news broke that pop-rock band Maroon 5 would lead the marquee show, which reaches an audience that generally tops 100 million, loud calls to boycott in solidarity with Kaepernick resounded. With its radio-friendly light songs about romance, the band seemed like a safe choice. But a petition urging the band to back out amassed more than 100,000 signatures, saying "until the league changes their policy and supports players' constitutional right to protest, no artists should agree to work with the NFL." Vic Oyedeji of North Carolina launched the petition, calling a boycott "the only way to affect the bottom line." "The NFL owners, they only see the bottom line. Let's be frank," he told AFP. After Maroon 5 accepted, two black rappers, Travis Scott and Big Boi, signed on. The move appeared to be an attempt by the National Football League to soothe anger not only over Kaepernick but also at having a mostly white California pop band star in the southern city of Atlanta, the capital of hip hop innovation. In another apparent bid to placate fans, the league booked Motown legend Gladys Knight, an Atlanta native, to sing the now-controversial Star Spangled Banner anthem before the game. - 'Throw money' at problems - Since 2016 the NFL has seen its reputation increasingly challenged after Kaepernick began taking a knee during the playing of the national anthem, a bid to draw attention to racial injustice. He has not played in the league since that year, and filed a grievance against the NFL and club owners claiming they have conspired not to hire him. US President Donald Trump made the kneeling protest a major issue, calling anyone who did it a "son of a bitch" and saying they should be fired. Rap royalty Jay-Z, a vocal Kaepernick backer, turned down top Super Bowl billing last year, which he referenced in his 2018 hit "APES**T." "I said no to the Superbowl/You need me, I don't need you," he raps in the song he co-performed with superstar wife Beyonce. The rap mogul reportedly tried to convince Scott, a Grammy-nominated rapper, to scrap his partnership with the NFL. A slew of rappers including Meek Mill and Common then voiced discontent that Scott would perform. Civil rights activist Al Sharpton also reprimanded the artists on board with the NFL saying: "You can't help people market something and then turn around and say but you agree with what people are protesting." The league did not respond to AFP's request for comment. But the show will go on with Scott, who according to Billboard signed on only after the NFL agreed to make a joint donation of $500,000 to a social justice organization. Maroon 5 partnered with the league and its label to give the same sum to an aid organization for children. Oyedeji scoffed at the move: "This is how big businesses handle issues with race," he said. "They throw money at the problem." - Bad publicity, still publicity - He also questioned the decision to perform by Big Boi -- half of Atlanta's legendary duo Outkast, whose eclectic brand of funk-infused hip hop took southern rap mainstream. "I can see on the one hand he's doing it for his city," he said. "But a lot of people are upset because they don't want to play second fiddle to a white artist in Atlanta, a black city." Oyedeji added that Big Boi has lost some fans in the process. "I know a lot of people who are very disappointed and surprised in Big Boi," he said. Despite the boycott efforts David Allan, a music marketing expert at Philadelphia's Saint Joseph's University, told AFP ratings would likely survive the controversy. "It's going to be pretty hard to boycott the Super Bowl -- it's such a big event," he said. "Some of this plays into the idea that it's better to have bad publicity than no publicity at all."