Post Malone opened Super Bowl Sunday LVIII in Las Vegas with a tender performance of “America The Beautiful.”
Clad in a bolo tie and brown suede, the 10-time GRAMMY nominee self-accompanied on acoustic guitar for the patriotic number, crooning, “O beautiful for spacious skies / For amber waves of grain / For purple mountain majesty / Above the fruited plain / America, America / God shed his grace on thee / And crown thy good with brotherhood / From sea to shinin’ sea.”
Days before his big moment at Allegiant Stadium, the rapper admitted he found the opportunity more than a little “nerve-wracking.”
“I’m very nervous, but excited. I’m excited,” he said during Apple Music’s official pre-game press conference. “It’s just fun and super epic to be able to go out there and sing a song so many beautiful artists [sang] before on this stage, and I’m just gonna do my best. Just do my best and give it what I’ve got.”
“America The Beautiful” has been included in the Super Bowl pre-show dating back to 1974, when it was first performed by country singer Charley Pride. Other artists who’ve belted out the American standard by Katharine Lee Bates and Samuel A. Ward in years past include Babyface, Jhené Aiko, Chloe x Halle, John Legend, Mary J. Blige, and Ray Charles among others.
Posty’s patriotic number comes less than a week after Taylor Swift revealed the rapper would be featured on opening track “Fortnight” off her upcoming eleventh studio album The Tortured Poets Department, which she announced during her acceptance speech for Best Pop Vocal Album at the 2024 GRAMMYs. Swift, of course, was also in the stands to cheer on her boyfriend, Kansas City Chiefs tight end Travis Kelce, after flying back to the U.S. from four sold-out shows in Tokyo, Japan.
Prior to Malone’s performance, Andra Day belted out “Lift Every Voice and Sing,” known as "The Black National Anthem," penned by NAACP leader James Weldon Johnson, before the San Francisco 49ers and the Kansas City Chiefs rushed the field at Las Vegas’ Allegiant Stadium.