Unabridged: Kendrick’s “Great American Game” with David Dennis Jr.

The Stacks

Traci Thomas

Literature, Society & Culture, Books, Arts

4.8 • 1.8K Ratings

🗓️ 14 February 2025

⏱️ 17 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

*Patreon- and Substack-only bonus episode teaser*

In this episode of The Stacks Unabridged, author and ESPN writer David Dennis Jr. joins us to break down Kendrick Lamar’s Super Bowl halftime show. We get into the performance itself, the layers behind it, and how it fits into his ongoing beef with Drake. Plus, we discuss the reaction to the show and what it says about Kendrick’s place in music and culture.

You can find everything we discuss on today's show on The Stacks' website:

https://www.thestackspodcast.com/unabridged/2025/2/14/tsu-43-david-dennis-jr

Connect with David: Instagram | Twitter

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Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0	Hi, everybody. It's Tracy. Welcome back to another episode of the Stacks on Abridged. This is our
0:04.2	bonus content for subscribers on Substack and the Stacks Pack on Patreon. Today, we're doing
0:10.4	something extra special. We're dropping it in your feeds a week early because I am joined by
0:14.7	David Dennis Jr. ESPN personality, author of the movement made us to talk about Kendrick Lamar's
0:22.5	halftime show. I couldn't get enough of it. David wrote about it. We had to talk about it.
0:29.1	So here we are giving you our hottest takes, our highest joys, our lowest lows, our loudest
0:35.3	A minors. If you're listening to this episode and it cuts off after
0:39.0	about 15 minutes, that means you're not a member of the stacks pack or a subscriber over on
0:43.5	substack. You need to join those communities to get this content. When you join these communities,
0:49.3	you get this bonus episode plus all of our bonus episodes, you also get exclusive perks like our virtual
0:55.5	book club, my paid posts over on Substack, access to the Discord community, and a lot more.
1:01.0	So head to patreon.com slash the stacks to join or go to tracythomas.com.
1:07.3	Okay, now it is time for our great American game breakdown show with none other than David Dennis Jr.
1:15.3	Jr.
1:26.9	Okay, everybody, it's a bonus episode of the stacks. The stacks on a bridge. And it's a week
1:33.5	early. And you're probably like, why is it a week early? Why am I getting this today? And the truth is,
1:38.2	is because at the last possible moment, I decided that I had to talk about the Super Bowl. And I woke up Monday morning,
1:47.3	immediately went on social media. The first thing I see is David Dennis Jr., friend of the show,
1:53.4	self-promoting a piece he wrote in Anscape about the halftime show. And I said, you know what?
1:59.2	I want to talk about the halftime show. So I text David. And what? I want to talk about the halftime show.
2:05.6	So I text David. And I said, David, do we have to do this? And he says, absolutely. And I said, but we can't release it when my episode normally goes up on February 20th or whatever, because people
2:12.3	are going to be so over it. And I said, can you do something in the next 24 to 48 hours? And David said, can I? And so here we are. Welcome back. My culture, pop culture, black culture, sports culture, guru, David Dennis Jr. Hello.
	...

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