Beyoncé's 2013 Super Bowl XLVII performance was more than a halftime show. It redefined what the slot could be.
In New Orleans, Beyoncé opened with Run the World (Girls) and moved through Crazy in Love, Single Ladies, and others. Jay-Z did not perform their collaboration. A source at the time told US Weekly the rapper didn't want to dilute her spotlight.
That 2013 performance established Beyoncé as the dominant figure of the halftime stage. She had spent the previous decade as a global superstar, but Super Bowl XLVII cemented something different, proof that she could command the biggest stage on Earth and make it her own.
Next year, Jay-Z takes the Super Bowl LXI halftime slot. He is walking onto a stage his wife completely reimagined. The couple's joint work has expanded since, from the self-titled surprise drop in late 2013 to Drunk in Love, Everything Is Love, and most recently a remix featuring Jay-Z's first new verse in nearly five years.
The 2013 show foreshadowed what followed. Beyoncé's surprise 2016 appearance during Coldplay's halftime show, where she unveiled Formation, provoked nearly 50 pages of FCC complaints. She had learned the lesson of 2013: own the moment so completely that the establishment has no choice but to react.
Since then, Beyoncé has released three albums in the past decade alone, including Renaissance and Cowboy Carter. The woman who closed out 2013 with Halo did not stop.
When Jay-Z takes that stage in 2027, he will be stepping into the legacy his wife built thirteen years prior. The bar Beyoncé set in 2013 remains the standard.
