Jay-Z to headline Super Bowl LXI at SoFi Stadium

Super Bowl viewers who know Rihanna’s “Umbrella” or Beyoncé’s “Crazy in Love” better than a Jay-Z album have a familiar route into next year’s headliner. Jay-Z will lead the Super Bowl LXI halftime show on February 14, 2027, at SoFi Stadium in Inglewood, California. The announcement came during the October 26 Dallas Cowboys–Philadelphia Eagles game, according to the NFL’s report.

His connection to those pop songs helps explain the breadth of the booking. Alongside his own recordings, the Songwriters Hall of Fame’s profile identifies contributions to songs released by Beyoncé, Rihanna and Justin Timberlake. Meanwhile, his company, Roc Nation, has been involved in producing the halftime show for years. The announcement brings those overlapping careers into view: making records, helping write songs and helping put a performance on television.

The February appearance is separate from his October 23–24 concerts at the same stadium. SoFi’s July announcement scheduled those dates as part of his career-anniversary performances; the NFL now reports that the concerts took place. Sharing a venue connects the events geographically, but the October concerts and the February halftime show are distinct bookings.

Three roles provide a useful guide to the music and the work behind it:

• Recording artist and performer. Jay-Z released his debut album, Reasonable Doubt, through Roc-A-Fella Records in 1996. “Empire State of Mind,” featuring Alicia Keys, offers another entry point into his own catalog. Here, his name identifies the artist whose record listeners are hearing, with Keys identified as a collaborator. The NFL says his recent anniversary performances celebrated both 30 years of Reasonable Doubt and 25 years of The Blueprint.

• Songwriter. A song can carry one artist’s name while containing contributions from several writers. The Hall of Fame profile places Beyoncé’s “Crazy in Love,” Rihanna’s “Umbrella” and Timberlake’s “Suit & Tie” among Jay-Z’s songwriting contributions. “Umbrella” is a concrete example of how his work extends into another artist’s repertoire. Shared authorship establishes a contribution to the song; the profile leaves the division of individual words, melodies and other contributions unspecified. It identifies him as the first rapper inducted into the institution, in 2017.

• Halftime producer. This concerns the staged, televised show. The Hall of Fame profile credits Jay-Z with executive-producing and directing work on Super Bowl halftime productions, while the NFL says Roc Nation has produced the show since its league partnership began in 2019. That is a separate production context from creating a studio recording: the finished work is a performance presented to stadium and broadcast audiences.

The original 2019 partnership announcement also described Roc Nation advising on the selection of artists for major NFL performances. That wording establishes an advisory role. It leaves unanswered who made the current selection, so the historical agreement alone cannot explain how Jay-Z became this year’s headliner.

The announcement specifies neither a set list nor a guest lineup. The collaborations above offer ways to understand his career while those performance details remain unannounced. For U.S. viewers, the NFL lists ESPN, ABC and Disney+ as outlets for the February 14 broadcast, with mobile viewing through NFL+.