For this year’s Super Bowl — the NFL’s 55th and the pandemic’s first — R&B genius Jazmine Sullivan and actually great country singer Eric Church combined forces like a musical Voltron to perform the national anthem before kick-off. This performance comes a month after the release of Sullivan’s album Heaux Tales, and while “The Star-Spangled Banner†is no “Girl Like Me,†the duo gave a beautiful, refreshingly low-key rendition. The pair went for a relaxed tempo and gave a warm, earthy performance. These are the sorts of adjectives one normally doesn’t use to describe a performance of “The Star-Spangled Banner.†Basically, it was the spiritual opposite of Lady Gaga’s Evita-fication of it from the inauguration. All we’re saying is, they should teach those harmonies along with the lyrics to kids as soon as they enter grade school. We hope you all clapped twice as loud alone in your socially distanced one-to-two-person Super Bowl parties, to do the performance justice.
Jazmine Sullivan and Eric Church Are the Best Anthemic Crossover Event Since Stars and Stripes
