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Feb 03, 2020, 07:15 PM
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This review of the halftime show is spot-on. It honored Latin culture and was fun to watch. Both ladies sang snippets of their best hit-singles over the years.
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The N.F.L.’s pregame publicity had announced that there would be more songs than in any previous halftime show — but not more time than the allotted 12 minutes. With two headliners, that meant cramming a whole career into six minutes: more like greatest hooks than greatest hits.
The upside was that each segment — Shakira first, then Lopez, then together — was a kaleidoscope of rhythms, a demonstration of how much Latin (and Afro-Latin) music has contributed to American pop. The downside was that individual songs barely registered, though Shakira let herself linger over two of her best blockbusters: “Whenever, Wherever” and “Hips Don’t Lie.” She showed off the interconnections of Latin music by turning “Chantaje,” a reggaeton song, into an old-school rumba and pushing “Hips Don’t Lie” toward samba; she dared to crowd-surf without missing a cue. She also invoked Arabic and later African rhythms, unwilling to confine herself to one hemisphere.
Lopez placed herself as a New Yorker from the start, arriving on a skyscraper spire to sing “Jenny From the Block” and working through strenuous dance routines and wearing skintight leather and then even less. She perched on a pole, probably to remind fans of her role in “Hustlers” (for which she was snubbed by the Oscars); she did a slide on her knees that rivaled Bruce Springsteen’s stunt in 2009; she flaunted her famous rump. Lopez leaned on the dance-club part of her catalog of hits — a reminder that disco, too, has Latin roots.
And “Let’s Get Loud” — mingled with Shakira’s “Waka Waka (This Time for Africa),” some Congolese guitar and some New York mambo — reached out to a wider world and more serious concerns than a one-night party. This halftime show was euphoria with a purpose.
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