NFL anthem choice at Chiefs’ Brazil game sparks backlash (and a surprising twist)

With the national anthem prior to the Kansas City Chiefs and Los Angeles Chargers game in São Paulo, Brazil, it got complicated. Even the aftermath of what happened is layered, and not in the best of ways. The game was fine, the Karol G halftime show was fun, but the national anthem? That was something else.

The performance was an odd one. The NFL asked jazz performer Kamasi Washington to play his saxophone while he was standing next to a person playing an upright bass. There were no vocals, but Washington did a splendid job with his sax. The issue for many was the bass.

This is where it gets weird. One either understands jazz or they don't. The bass player was fine, but he was doing an improvisation that, to many, sounded as if it wasn't meant for the national anthem and didn't go with the sax. It wasn't great, but it made sense.

NFL's choice of national anthem performer at Chiefs-Chargers' Brazil game gets a lot of pushback

Especially in Brazil, where the NFL was holding its first regular season game. Brazil is home to samba and other genres of the same ilk. Jazz and samba share a lot of the same influences. Whoever at the NFL thought Washington doing the national anthem in Brazil had a good idea, though it was far from perfect.

That is when the social media reactions began, and many showed the problem with the performance might have lain more with the listener than the musical artist. Some commented that the crowd in Brazil began booing, but even that gets complicated.

Unless the stadium was filled with Americans (which would defeat the NFL's purpose of holding a game in a foreign country in an attempt to gain more international fans), then there is little reason for the crowd to boo a performance of a national anthem that isn't theirs. Brazilians probably don't listen to the American national anthem enough to have an opinion.

And vice versa for Americans listening to the Brazilian national anthem.

Also, many people on social media who commented on the performance wrote things such as, "What the hell did I listen to what national anthem was that? I don’t get the baseline" and "That national anthem literally sounded worse than a random New Orleans street corner performer act after a big event lets out. What in the absolute (expletive) was that base line?!"

It is difficult to agree with people's musical critiques if they write things like "baseline" when referring to an instrument that is spelled "bass." If they don't even know enough to comment on the correct spelling of the instrument, why should we trust their views about the music?

And if you must know, Travis Kelce's Kansas City Chiefs lost to the Los Angeles Chargers. It was a bad day for Swities, too.