Every February, one man has the final say on who gets the biggest stage in music. This time, he had a pretty convenient pick. The NFL, Apple Music, and Roc Nation announced that Jay-Z will headline the Apple Music Super Bowl LXI Halftime Show at SoFi Stadium in Inglewood, California, on Sunday, February 14, 2027.
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The reveal came during halftime of the Dallas Cowboys and Philadelphia Eagles on Monday Night Football, and ESPN’s Adam Schefter posted that Jay-Z would be the headline performer on Valentine’s Day 2027.
ESPN’s Scott Van Pelt said it on the air: “It will be Jay-Z in SoFi on [Valentine’s Day].” Apple Music also ran a black-and-white ad with Jay-Z surrounded by goats in an empty stadium, ending on the message “Goat’s Out Of The Bag.”
Technically, he picked himself. Jay-Z has had the ultimate say on the headliner every year since 2020, and Miley Cyrus and Justin Bieber were reportedly in the running this time. Honestly, who was going to say no?
Roc Nation signed on as the NFL’s live music entertainment strategist in 2019, and its first halftime show was Shakira and Jennifer Lopez at Super Bowl LIV in 2020. The deal was extended in 2024 for another five years.
“From Reasonable Doubt to standing on the Super Bowl Halftime stage, this has been a journey,” Jay-Z said. “Thirty years of music, work, and culture on the world’s biggest stage. This run continues to be a dream come true.”
NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell said he asked for exactly this when the league first reached its deal with Roc Nation: “I had just one request: that Jay-Z take the stage himself one day.”
Jay-Z was not always sold. He famously rapped about turning down the Super Bowl back in 2018, and in 2024, he told Entertainment Tonight, “I thought it would be selfish to pick myself too early. Maybe one year. Maybe.”
He had said no before. He told the New York Times in 2020 that the NFL once approached him about headlining on the condition that he perform with Rihanna and Kanye West, and he turned it down on principle. Maybe it turns out it meant Valentine’s Day.
Roc Nation will oversee production of the broadcast, and Hamish Hamilton will handle direction. The game airs on ESPN, ABC, and Disney+, and on mobile devices with NFL+.
Jay-Z, 56 and a 25-time Grammy winner, has never performed at a Super Bowl halftime show before. It will be the second Super Bowl at SoFi, after Super Bowl LVI in 2022. Last season’s game, headlined at halftime by Bad Bunny, drew almost 128.2 million viewers.
If it felt like Jay-Z was warming up for this, you weren’t imagining it. The last year of his schedule reads like a rehearsal, one stadium stop after another.
How Jay-Z’s Stadium Run Led to the Halftime Stage
The Jay-Z 30 tour celebrated 30 years of Reasonable Doubt and 25 years of The Blueprint. He sold out three nights at Yankee Stadium in July, played stadiums in London and Paris in September, including Tottenham Hotspur Stadium and Stade de France, and wrapped up in Inglewood with two shows at SoFi Stadium on October 23 and 24.
The hints were everywhere. At Yankee Stadium on July 11, Pharrell Williams joked about Jay-Z’s new low Caesar haircut, saying, “They poked the bear, and now the bear cut his hair.”
He had been collecting stadium reps. Jay-Z made surprise appearances on Beyoncé’s Cowboy Carter tour in Paris, Atlanta and Las Vegas in 2025, and his June 22 stop in Atlanta was the couple’s first live performance together in seven years. He then headlined the Roots Picnic in Philadelphia on May 30, his first solo headlining show since at least 2019.
He also collaborated with producer Rick Rubin on Jay-Z in 8, an eight-part HBO documentary series regarding his life and impact that debuted in September. Apple’s Oliver Schusser, the company’s Vice President of Music and International Content, said:
“Jay-Z’s impact on global music culture is as profound as it is undeniable.”
Now comes the fun part: guests. None have been announced, but Beyoncé is the obvious name. She headlined Super Bowl XLVII in 2013, appeared at Super Bowl 50 in 2016, and joined her husband at his Yankee Stadium shows. Nas also appeared at the New York shows, and Dr. Dre and Snoop Dogg joined him at SoFi last weekend.
One thing is already locked in. On Valentine’s Day, the man who has picked the halftime headliner for years finally gets to be the one on the stage. Who walks out with him is the only question left.