Jay-Z will headline the Apple Music Super Bowl LXI Halftime Show on February 14, 2027, at SoFi Stadium in Inglewood, California, less than 48 hours after wrapping his own tour on that same stage. “From Reasonable Doubt to standing on the Super Bowl Halftime stage, this has been a journey,” Jay-Z said in a statement, calling the moment the product of “thirty years of music, work, and culture on the world’s biggest stage.”
The announcement caps off a year-long celebration under the banner “Jay-Z 30,” which included a headlining Roots Picnic set in May, three sold-out Yankee Stadium shows in July marking the 25th and 30th anniversaries of The Blueprint and Reasonable Doubt, international dates in Paris and London, and the eight-part docuseries Jay-Z in 8 with Rick Rubin. The tour closed this past weekend with two SoFi Stadium shows featuring guest appearances from Scarface, DJ Khaled, John Legend, Blue Ivy Carter, Dr. Dre, Snoop Dogg, and Too Short.
NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell said in a statement that Roc Nation, which has produced the halftime show for several years, had one standing request when the partnership began: that Jay-Z eventually take the stage himself whenever the timing felt right. Apple’s Oliver Schusser echoed that sentiment, calling Jay-Z’s impact on global music culture “as profound as it is undeniable.” Jay-Z joins a run of recent headliners that includes Kendrick Lamar, Bad Bunny, Usher, Rihanna, and the 2022 collective performance from Dr. Dre, Snoop Dogg, Eminem, Mary J. Blige, and Lamar, continuing the show’s recent pattern of centering Black and Latino artists at the top of the bill.
This year’s Bad Bunny performance, which drew an average of 128.2 million viewers and later won seven Emmys including Outstanding Special (Live), set a notably high bar heading into Jay-Z’s turn. Roc Nation will executive produce the upcoming show, with Hamish Hamilton directing. The broadcast will air on ESPN, ABC, and Disney+, with Spanish-language coverage on ESPN Deportes, Disney+, and Univision.
With guest performers still unannounced and a catalog spanning three decades to pull from, the open question now is which era of Jay-Z’s career the show leans into, and who joins him on a stage he’s spent years producing for everyone else first.