Jon Batiste will sing national anthem at Super Bowl LIX, other performers join
The pregame lineup for Super Bowl LIX is in and it's leaning heavily into Louisiana pride.
Grammy-winning singer and composer Jon Batiste will sing the national anthem while Trombone Shorty and Lauren Daigle will collaborate for "America the Beautiful," and Ledisi will perform "Lift Every Voice and Sing," the NFL confirmed in an announcement Thursday night.
Batiste, Shorty and Ledisi are all New Orleans natives − the city that will host this year's game − and Daigle is from Lake Charles, Louisiana.
"We're honored to work with this year's pregame lineup to celebrate the rich musical legacy of New Orleans and the entire state," Seth Dudowsky, head of music at the NFL, said in the announcement.
Batiste, whose Louisiana flavor bleeds easily through into his music, rose to fame in part as head of the band on "The Late Show with Steven Colbert." Since leaving the show, his acclaim as a musical artist has grown exponentially nabbing an Album of the Year Grammy for "We Are" and several more nominations this year for his musical documentary film "American Symphony."
Shorty, another multi-hyphenate from the Pelican state, is known for a genre-bending brand of jazz and funk. His ties to New Orleans run deep − the artist boasts his own Mardi Gras parade complete with a float in his likeness.
Daigle is a Christian music star who has pulled off a rare pop crossover, with one single "You Say" going six times platinum. Daigle's music oscillates between outright religious and more traditional singer-songwriter fare.
The final act, Ledisi, who will lead the stadium in the Black national anthem is a Grammy-winning vocalist and producer whose R&B tracks demonstrate massive vocal range over smooth and sometimes familiar rhythms.
Who is performing at the Super Bowl Halftime show this year?
While the pre-show generates buzz, the biggest performer of the night will be Kendrick Lamar who is slated to headline the halftime show.
The show, which represents the height of exposure for an artist, is a harsh pivot from Lamar's more recent years in which he retreated from publicity.
Lamar burst back onto the scene this year has been forceful and scandal-idded. Lamar is fresh off the drop of a surprise album "GNX" and a wildly popular single "Not Like Us" released amid perhaps the most talked about rap beef since Biggie and Tupac.
The spat with Canadian rapper Drake featured back-and-forth diss tracks and got so big that last week it jumped from the charts to the courtroom. Drake, who is widely seen as the battle's loser filed two petitions last week − one in Texas and one in New York − alleging Universal Music Group conspired with iHeart Radio and Spotify to inflate the streams of "Not Like Us."
UMG represents both hitmakers, said in a statement to Paste BN "The suggestion that UMG would do anything to undermine any of its artists is offensive and untrue. We employ the highest ethical practices in our marketing and promotional campaigns. No amount of contrived and absurd legal arguments in this pre-action submission can mask the fact that fans choose the music they want to hear."
Contributing: KiMi Robinson