Sharika And Jennifer Lopez Halftime Show At Super Bowl LIV, Sunday, February 2nd, 2020, Reviewed

The difference between Shakira and Jennifer Lopez last night at the Halftime Show At Super Bowl LIV was pretty clear, and though they complemented each other in a joyful performance that included a tribute to Kobe Bryant and a children’s chorus, Shakira was all about Latin salsa and merengue rhythms and J Lo all about r&b but they came together as a new way of blowing the cobwebs off the halftime show, with women power on display, two Urban Latino superstars, Bad Bunny and J. Balvin, joining in, and the entire enterprise a triumph of diversity.

Last year we got the disastrous Maroon 5 show, this year we got J Lo defying gravity on the stripper pole, as well as a shout out to the boogie down Bronx with “Jenny From The Block,” an arena shattering “Let’s Get Loud,” J Balvin on the huge “Mi Gigent” and more once she got together with Shakira. Certainly,Lopez was much better than that Vegas show (here)

Shakira brought out some of her big hits too, “She Wolf” was an early show stopper and, if anything, Cardi B’s “I Like It” and her own classic “Hips Don’t Lie” came together, though we would have all loved “Under Your Clothes” the clothes didn’t fit.

The Kobe tribute as such, “An overhead shot of the field showed a giant cross, which lit up in purple and yellow, the colors of the Los Angeles Lakers for whom Bryant played for from 1996 until his retirement in 2016” was nothing much, but the conclusion, about another sport entirely, Shakira’s awesome “Waka Waka (This Time for Africa)” The Official 2010 FIFA World Cup song brought the two women together in celebration

Just as moving was J Lo literally wrapping herself up in the Puerto Rican flag. In the winter of a vigorous, White House inspired inspired, attack on African and Latin America, the entire show worked as a stick up the nose of institutionalized racism.

Grade: A-