Jay-Z to Headline Apple Music Super Bowl LXI Halftime Show at SoFi Stadium

Jay-Z will headline the Apple Music Super Bowl LXI Halftime Show on Feb. 14, 2027, at SoFi Stadium in Inglewood, California, the NFL, Apple Music and Roc Nation announced Monday night. The booking puts Shawn Carter on the Super Bowl halftime stage as the featured performer for the first time.

The announcement is notable because Roc Nation, Jay-Z’s entertainment company, has partnered with the NFL since 2019 as the league’s live music entertainment strategist and has overseen and produced the Super Bowl halftime show since that agreement. Even with that role, Jay-Z has never before headlined the event himself.

Roc Nation will executive-produce the halftime presentation, and veteran live-TV director Hamish Hamilton will direct it, according to the joint announcement reported by The Associated Press.

In a statement quoted by AP, Jay-Z said: “From ‘Reasonable Doubt’ to standing on the Super Bowl halftime stage, this has been a journey. 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 the league had long hoped Jay-Z would eventually take the stage. When the NFL first reached its agreement with Roc Nation, Goodell said, the league had one request: that Jay-Z perform himself “whenever the moment felt right to him.”

The selection comes as Jay-Z wraps a career-anniversary stretch tied to the 30th anniversary of Reasonable Doubt, his 1996 debut album. AP reported that he recently closed a run of anniversary concerts that included shows at Yankee Stadium, in London and Paris, and two SoFi Stadium dates immediately before Monday’s announcement.

That timing gives the halftime booking an added sense of culmination: the artist who has helped shape the NFL’s biggest music event in recent years is now stepping into the top spot during a milestone period in his own catalog. Roc Nation’s partnership with the league has made Jay-Z a central figure in the presentation of the halftime show since 2019, and Super Bowl LXI will mark the first time that relationship extends to him as the billed headliner.

Jay-Z is one of the most decorated and commercially successful artists in hip-hop, with 25 Grammy Awards and 89 nominations, according to AP’s career background. Recent halftime headliners have included Kendrick Lamar in 2025 and Bad Bunny in 2026.