Take a bow, Rihanna

It's no exaggeration to say that international superstar Rihanna shone bright like a diamond last night during her performance at the Super Bowl LVII halftime show in Phoenix, Arizona.

While the singer and businesswoman recorded the anthemic song Lift Me Up for Black Panther: Wakanda Forever,she hasn't released an album since 2016.

Culture critics Syrus Marcus Ware and Craig Seymour join Elamin Abdelmahmoud to discuss Rihanna's highly-anticipated performance at this year's Super Bowl halftime show, and whether it lived up to the hype.

We've included some highlights below. For the full discussion, listen and follow the Commotion with Elamin Abdelmahmoud podcast, on your favourite podcast player.

Elamin: What are you thinking about as you hear Rihanna doing All Of The Lights? Syrus, I'll start with you. 

Syrus: I loved it. I really was so excited to hear hit after hit after hit. But for me it was, of course, when she sung about the "shining-bright-like-a-diamond" raising up into the sky. I was just completely enamoured.

Craig: I liked her coming out singing B*** Better Have My Money. That was some real talk in terms of what's going on in the NFL and inequity of pay between Black players, what goes on just in the way Black people have to navigate through life no matter what financial situation they're in, so I thought she was coming right out the gate saying, "hey, this is what it is, this is what it's all about."

Elamin: Syrus, if you had to say from 1 to 10, what would you give it?

Syrus: Okay, I have to confess I started out thinking it was a seven or an eight. It was a little bit slow for me. I was like, "okay, this is sort of like a regular concert — where's the surprise? Where's the excitement?" And then, when she did "shining like a diamond in the sky" and she raised up and she had that coat and the little baby bump, I was like, okay Rihanna, I'm going to give it a nine and a half, ten at this point.

Elamin: Craig, what about you?

Craig: For me, it was a little bit difficult because I think Rihanna is in her own lane performance-wise. In the same way she called her last album Anti, it's almost as if everything she does in performance is "anti." Even the baby reveal was kind of an "anti-reveal" because she didn't really show it off; it wasn't until we got confirmation of the pregnancy till later. And I had always thought that she was going to end with Lift Me Up from Black Panther because I thought, "that's her biggest song right now. Everybody knows it. The movie literally ends with it," and she doesn't. So I just love that she always keeps us with our surprises and everything. I don't know what I could quantify it as a number, but I do know that she understood the assignment: she inspired us. She got us talking. She got us just re-living our lives through her songs, and you can't expect anything more from a great performance, I don't think.

Elamin: Syrus, what was interesting to me is that there was all this speculation of, who is Rihanna going to bring out? Because usually the Super Bowl halftime show is an occasion to bring out your posse, bring out everyone you know who's famous to come lend a hand and kind of elevate you. Rihanna did not do that. Did that work for you?

Syrus: I love it. I thought it was so great, and for Rihanna to be like, "you all have been asking me for an album for six years. Guess what, you're getting me. You're getting me for this entire set." And you know, to be able to come out in that way, unapologetically Rihanna, with the fashion, with that moment where she sort of applies her Fenty in the middle of the show, I was just like, "okay, Rihanna, I really get what you're trying to do here." I think she made it about her, and I think that that's right. In a world that's clamouring for more of her. When do we get to sort of say, "okay, you want more? Here's more." That's what she did.

Craig: I really would want to hear the conversation backstage, if Jay-Z was ever like, "Hey Rhi, you want me to run in and do my Run This Town verse?" and she was like, "um, no I'm good."

Elamin: There's a really interesting dynamic to me where Rihanna was sort of showcasing her empire in that, right? Like, it was not really about all these features, it was about the fact that she runs this fashion empire, she runs this makeup empire, and she can hold the whole stage all on her own. And she did, in fact, exactly that. Craig, did you think there was anything missing from this performance?

Craig: I didn't really think that there was anything missing. I thought that what we were watching is an artist sort of editing her legacy... At this point she's really leaning into a certain sound that she made as she was making a lot of the other pop dance sounds that made her a big hit. But she was clearly leaning in to the sort of hip-hop, R&B-ish-type of numbers, more so than the "Only Girl (In the World)," the dance numbers and all that kind of thing.

Elamin: No Pon de Replay, and if Rihanna doesn't think we noticed, we noticed.

You can listen to the full discussion from today's show on CBC Listen or on our podcast, Commotion with Elamin Abdelmahmoud, available wherever you get your podcasts.