February 13, 2022 – SoFi Stadium in Inglewood, Calif., Super Bowl LVL held a series of performances before the official games featuring Grammy-winning gospel duo Mary Mary’s rendition of “Lift Every Voice and Sing,” the hymn considered to be the “Black national anthem” by most, another showcase of “America the Beautiful” by Los Angeles native singer-songwriter Jhené Aiko, and the national anthem was sung by breakout country star Mickey Guyton.
The look you give when you are NOT Jhene Aiko #SuperBowl pic.twitter.com/rJNWzRXyDe
— Melissa G (@MelissaGoBlue) February 13, 2022
“It’s Black History Month, and a Black country singer gets to sing the national anthem at the Super Bowl,” Guyton told the New York Post earlier this week. “Wow. This is a huge moment for me. It’s a huge moment for Black people. And I want to represent that in the best possible way that I can.”
But the positive sentiments were spoiled when NBC mistakenly branded the caption for the black female artist Guyton as Aiko – another woman of color. This led to outage fans pointing fingers at NBC for their grave blunder on Twitter.
When Guyton was 38 years old, she was on the verge of giving up on her musical dreams since she had to battle racism in Nashville for ten years to get to this point. In contrast, she was the first Black female solo artist nominated for a Grammy in the country category last year. Guyton has hit her professional peak.
“It has been a long time coming.” Last year, Guyton told Yahoo Entertainment, “The fact that I’m here is a miracle.” “Like in 2019, I was ready to stop it all. One hundred percent, sometimes on a daily, I was like, ‘Why did I choose to do this? Like, this makes no sense.’ I remember crying to my husband, mad at him because he would never let me quit. And he kept saying, ‘Because you need to be here. If you’re not out there, then for every Black girl that wants to sing country music, that dream has gone if you’re not there.’ Then I was like, ‘OK, fine.’ And I’m so glad I didn’t stop.”
Even if the NFL’s upsetting captioning gaffe marred Guyton’s long-awaited Super Bowl appearance, her performance was a victory in the end. At the conclusion, she looked to be overcome with emotion as she realized that she had just brilliantly performed in front of one of the world’s most influential television audiences in the most patriotic royal blue gown and with a white-clad choir behind her. According to Country Living, this was one of the finest renditions of the “Star-Spangled Banner” in Super Bowl history. New fans who see Guyton for the first time on Super Bowl Sunday should remember her name, hopefully.
A post later this week by Guyton stated: “I set my intentions with singing the national anthem. I was like, ‘OK, togetherness is what I want.’ So, I felt that people would feel together if I had a choir with people representing America. And, you know, I have everybody from my Black queen to a redneck cowboy to a girl with one leg in this choir. And that’s the America that I’m proud of — us all standing together. We all belong.”
