--- title: "Jay-Z will headline the Super Bowl LXI halftime show at SoFi Stadium in Inglewood in February" url: https://badiyaa.com/jay-z-super-bowl-lxi-halftime-show-headliner/ published: 2026-10-27T12:53:00+00:00 modified: 2026-10-27T12:53:00+00:00 section: Entertainment publisher: Badiyaa --- # Jay-Z will headline the Super Bowl LXI halftime show at SoFi Stadium in Inglewood in February The NFL, Apple Music and Roc Nation named him on October 26; it is the eighth halftime show his company will produce, and the first he will perform himself. Jay-Z will headline the Super Bowl halftime show for the first time. The NFL, Apple Music and Roc Nation, the company he founded, named him on Monday night, October 26, during the Cowboys and Eagles game on Monday Night Football. He will perform on February 14, 2027, at SoFi Stadium in Inglewood, California, the same venue where he closed his JAŸ-Z30 anniversary run two nights in a row the weekend before. It is the most unusual booking of the Roc Nation era, because Jay-Z is in effect the man who signs off on the act. His company has advised the league on live music since 2019 and has had the final word on the headliner every year since 2020. Roc Nation will executive-produce the 2027 show and Hamish Hamilton will direct it. ABC and ESPN will carry the game, and it will also stream on Disney+, the first time a halftime show airs on ESPN. ## What he and the league said In a news release, Jay-Z tied the booking to his first album. “From Reasonable Doubt to standing on the Super Bowl Halftime stage, this has been a journey,” he said. “Thirty years of music, work and culture on the world’s biggest stage.” NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell said he had made one request when the league first reached its agreement with Roc Nation: “that Jay-Z take the stage himself one day, whenever the moment felt right to him.” That moment took years. In a 2024 interview, Jay-Z said, “I thought it would be selfish to pick myself too early.” Before the Roc Nation partnership, he has said, the league offered him the slot on condition that he perform “Run This Town” with Rihanna and Kanye West, and he declined on principle. Rihanna went on to headline in 2023. The announcement ends a week of speculation. Reports that he had chosen himself began circulating on October 20, and Goodell responded at the time that the league had not announced anything and would not comment until it did. ## The Roc Nation era, show by show Counting the 2027 game, this is the eighth halftime show Roc Nation will produce. The run so far: - **2020:** Shakira and Jennifer Lopez - **2021:** The Weeknd - **2022 (Los Angeles):** Dr. Dre with Eminem, Kendrick Lamar, Mary J. Blige and Snoop Dogg, plus cameos from 50 Cent and Anderson .Paak - **2023:** Rihanna - **2024:** Usher - **2025:** Kendrick Lamar, with SZA, in New Orleans - **2026:** Bad Bunny, at Levi’s Stadium in Santa Clara - **2027:** Jay-Z, at SoFi Stadium Read that list for genre and the pattern is plain: four of the seven shows so far were led by rap or R&B acts, and the 2022 bill alone put five hip hop and R&B headliners on one stage. Lamar’s 2025 set drew 133.5 million viewers, the most-watched halftime show on record, beating the audience for Michael Jackson’s 1993 performance. Last season’s game drew almost 125 million. ## Why SoFi matters The venue is a direct line from his 2026 calendar. The anniversary tour, marking 30 years of *Reasonable Doubt* and 25 of *The Blueprint*, opened with three sold-out nights at Yankee Stadium in July, went to London for two shows and Paris for one in September, then finished at SoFi on October 23 and 24. We covered [those two SoFi nights, with Scarface, Dr. Dre and Snoop Dogg as guests](https://badiyaa.com/jay-z-sofi-stadium-scarface-dre-snoop/), and the [$42.3 million Yankee Stadium gross](https://badiyaa.com/jay-z-yankee-stadium-42-million-record/) that set a record for a rapper. No guests have been named for February. The 25-time Grammy winner has a deep label roster to draw on, and Beyoncé, his wife, headlined the halftime show herself in 2013. Counting from the announcement, the show is 111 days away: kickoff for Super Bowl LXI is on Sunday, February 14, 2027. ## Further reading - [Wikipedia: Super Bowl LXI halftime show](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Super_Bowl_LXI_halftime_show) - [Wikipedia: Jay-Z](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jay-Z) *Image: Nowoco, CC0 via Wikimedia Commons* *This article was produced with AI assistance and reviewed by our Editorial Desk. [How we work](https://badiyaa.com/editorial-policy/).*