The protestor who disrupted Kendrick Lamar’s Super Bowl halftime performance in 2025 is celebrating a courtroom victory after beating one of two misdemeanor charges at a trial in Louisiana this week.
New Orleans judge Juana Marine-Lombard found Zul-Qarnain Kwame Nantambu guilty of resisting an officer but not guilty of disturbing the peace by interruption of a lawful assembly.
‘I’m thankful to God,’ the 41-year-old Nantambu told The Daily Mail on Tuesday night. ‘I’m not tripping. Whatever is gonna come from this is gonna come from this.’
Nantambu was permitted to be on the field at the Superdome on February 9, 2025, but deviated from the role he was assigned for Lamar’s halftime show. According to the Louisiana State Police, and as seen in photographs from the Chiefs’ loss to the Eagles, Nantambu hoisted himself atop a prop car during the halftime performance and unfurled a pro-Palestinian and pro-Sudanese flag.
The demonstration was aimed at supporting refugees targeted by Sudanese paramilitary groups in Darfur as well as Palestinians being attacked by Israeli armed forces in the Gaza Strip.
Although Nantambu was pleased with Lombard’s ruling, he remains nervous about his June 1 sentencing, where he could get up to six months in prison and a $500 fine: ‘I pray I’m not incarcerated behind this.’
Zul-Qarnain Kwame Nantambu was seen unfurling a pro-Sudan and pro-Gaza flag Kendrick Lamar’s Super Bowl halftime performance in 2025 in New Orleans
Nantambu, now 41, is arrested during Super Bowl LIX between the Eagles and the Chiefs
Nantambu, a jewerly designer, is a strong supporter of Sudanese and Palestinian refugees
The NFL took a keen interest in the case, according to Nantambu, who claimed to see several high-ranking league security officials at his trial.
‘The NFL flew in two people,’ Nantambu said. ‘So when I saw the guy in there with a suit on and an NFL pin, I was like: “Oh, they taking this serious.”‘
The Daily Mail has reached out for comment from the NFL about Nantambu, who has banned from league games for life.
On Tuesday, Nantambu’s attorney Emily H. Posner told The Daily Mail that Lombard’s ruling ‘assures that the NFL does not dictate how the criminal legal system works.’
Posner did raise the possibility of an appeal by saying she and her client ‘disagree’ with the guilty verdict for resisting arrest and are now ‘reviewing our options.’
As for the protest itself, Nantambu doesn’t regret unfurling the ‘Sudan & Gaza Freedom Flag,’ as it’s known, which he says represents ‘victims of imperialism and victims of other people’s greed and evil.’
Rather, he wishes the demonstration could have ended suffering in Sudan, where an estimated 150,000 are believed to have been killed since 2023, and Gaza, where the death toll has surpassed 72,000 over roughly that same time period.
‘It brought awareness to those who were suffering,’ he said. ‘I wish it could have funneled into something to benefit the people, besides attention.’
Nantambu is seen being arrested during the halftime show at Super Bowl LIX in 2025
In a picture purportedly from Dubai in 2022, Zül-Qarnaįn Nantambu is seen standing on a yacht. As he told Daily Mail, it’s Antonio Brown who is pictured wearing red in the background
Zül-Qarnaįn Nantambu, who goes by ‘@fff_zulqarnain’ on Instagram, shared photos of his injuries with Daily Mail. Nantambu says a bullet grazed his neck and he broke a finger
Nantambu is simultaneously involved in another NFL-adjacent story. As he told The Daily Mail back in of 2025, he was Antonio Brown’s intended target when the former Pittsburgh Steelers star allegedly fired a handgun during a melee outside a boxing match.
Brown pleaded not guilty in November to a charge of attempted second-degree murder after being extradited from Dubai, where he’d been since the May 16 shooting outside a Miami boxing event.
He remains out on bond and currently faces up to 30 years in prison if convicted.
Shortly after the shooting, viral video surfaced showing Brown running towards a brawl with a firearm in hand. The Super Bowl winner later claimed on social media he was defending himself from a would-be jewel thief, whom he identified as Nantambu.
A jewelry designer who has a long legal history with Brown, Nantambu contradicted that claim in a previous interview with the Daily Mail.
Nantambu claimed it was he who was attacked by security guards on Brown’s instruction as the retired receiver ran to retrieve a firearm. Nantambu, who wasn’t arrested or even detained, told the Daily Mail that a bullet grazed his neck and he suffered a broken finger in the melee.
Brown’s attorney Mark Russell Eiglarsh has admitted his client fled the brawl with Nantambu and others only to return with a ‘concealed firearm.’ However, Eiglarsh has motioned to dismiss the case based on Florida’s ‘Stand Your Ground’ law, saying Brown had no intention of shooting when he returned to the fray and only ‘fired two warning shots’ in an effort to deescalate the situation.
‘Brown hoped the warning shots would deter Nantambu’s aggression, allowing Brown to safely reach his vehicle and leave the scene,’ read the motion.
Asked if he has been contacted by investigators, Nantambu told The Daily Mail he has ‘no idea’ what’s going on with the Brown case at the moment.
