Rihanna Stuns Without Gimmicks During the 2023 Super Bowl Halftime Show

On Sunday night, after five years away from the stage, Rihanna returned with a simple reminder of her talent. After a few years of halftime shows where spectacle and a quick pace reigned, Rihanna’s performance ran through her hits in a surprisingly unadorned way. It was proof that her staying power when she was focused on her music was about charisma and non-stop delivery. Despite speculation that she might be joined by guests during the performance, she did her tight 12 minute set in the company of dancers and a backing band. (Turns out she might have been talking about a guest we couldn’t quite see. After the night ended, her reps confirmed that she is expecting another baby.)

The production values were just as high as you might expect from a show co-produced by Apple, and she spent most of the performance standing on moving platform suspended from the ceiling. In a red jacket by Alaïa, a custom jumpsuit from Loewe, and shoes from the new MM6 Maison Margiela x Salomon collection, she started the show with her 2015 song “Bitch Better Have My Money” surrounded by scores of dancers wearing the same outfit in white. She moved into a medley of some of her biggest dance hits, “Where Have You Been,” “Only Girl (In the World),” “We Found Love,” and a rhythmic extended mix of “Rude Boy.”

The pace changed when the opening notes of her 2016 number one “Work,” which segued into “Wild Thoughts,” and “Pour It Up,” which she accompanied with some twerking. “All of the Lights” started with touch up a bit of powder from a Fenty palette, and segued into “Run This Town,” but she ended the performance with her two of her biggest hits, 2007’s “Umbrella” and 2012’s “Diamonds,” which have become career-defining songs.

Her last live performance was at the 60th Grammy Awards in February 2019, where she sang “Wild Thoughts,” along with its lead artist, DJ Khaled. With 14 number one hits under her belt and 31 singles that have hit the top 10, Rihanna had options when it came to choosing a setlist for her turn at Arizona’s State Farm Stadium. On Thursday, she told Apple Music’s Nadeska Alexis that she has worked with 39 different versions of the set list as the show’s planning evolved.

Speaking with Alexis, Rihanna mentioned that she got the call about performing at the show just three months after the birth of the son she shares with A$AP Rocky, and new motherhood influenced her desire to accept the gig. “When you become a mom, there’s something that just happens where you feel like you can take on the world. You can do anything, and the Super Bowl is one of the biggest stages in the world,” she said. “So, as scary as that was … there’s something exhilarating about the challenge of it all, and it’s important for me to do this this year. It’s important for representation. It’s important for my son to see that.”

Though the show was a test for Rihanna’s star power after years away from the stage, it was also the night where Apple Music’s deal with the league was put to the test. In September 2022, the tech company announced a five-year, $250 million deal to helm the show after Pepsi, its lead sponsor for a decade, pulled out last spring. Instead of simply sponsoring the show, the tech company played a supporting role in producing the show alongside Jay-Z’s management and production company Roc Nation. 

Ultimately, Rihanna’s decision to perform is a reflection of the changes the NFL has made in the wake of 2017’s racial justice protests that turned Colin Kaepernick into a nationally known activist and a league pariah. In fact, in the months before the 2019 Super Bowl she turned down an offer to headline the show out of solidarity with Kaepernick. “I just couldn’t be a sellout. I couldn’t be an enabler,” she told Vogue in October 2019. “There’s things within that organization that I do not agree with at all, and I was not about to go and be of service to them in any way.”

Initially, Jay-Z spoke out in support of Kaepernick’s decision to kneel during the anthem and take on the league, and in 2019 he reportedly asked Travis Scott not to perform alongside Maroon 5. But later that year, Roc Nation signed a deal with the NFL to co-produce the halftime show, five months after Kaepernick reached a confidential settlement with the league. In an interview with the New York Times, Jay-Z noted that the league’s issues with securing talent for the show go a bit deeper than disagreements about social justice. Unlike a handful of previous years’ artists, Rihanna stayed away from explicit political statements during her performance.

According to the Arizona Republic, Jay-Z himself made the decision to invite Rihanna, along with Roc Nation’s co-CEO, Desiree Perez. Jay Brown, the co-CEO of Roc Nation who has worked with Rihanna since 2005, added that Rihanna did have to think hard about the offer before she accepted. “She performs for the love of it,” he says. “She performs for the people. She loves her fans. That’s really what she gets out of it. At the same time, she’s looking at this as having a great time and it being really fun for her.