Kendrick Lamar commanded one of the world’s most high-profile stages Sunday as the Super Bowl’s halftime headliner, yet another feather in the cap of the rap laureate , who has ascended to new heights of pop stardom.
Lamar toyed with his audience, who had one big question: Would he perform “Not Like Us,” the searing diss track that served as the decisive blow in his eyebrow-raising rap battle with Drake?
In a word? Yes.
The Pulitzer Prize-winning rapper Lamar, who is the first solo rap artist to play a halftime show at the Super Bowl this year and saw the Philadelphia Eagles defeat the Kansas City Chiefs, uses his punchlines to accuse Drake of paedophilia in the highly infectious hit released in May 2024.
“I wanna perform their favourite song”, he said at one point during the 13-minute set — the Grammy-winning track’s ubiquitous, instantly recognizable bass line resounding — “but you know they love to sue”.
He started the set atop the Buick Grand National it’s named after before turning heads with fans with a knife-twisting rendition of “Not Like Us” and classics like “Humble” and “DNA” as well as tracks from his most recent album “GNX”
Lamar cut the profanity and the word “pedophile” but didn’t stop short of the money line, rapping “tryna strike a chord and it’s probably A-minoooooor” on live television in front of tens of thousands of spectators and an estimated 100 million viewers.
In delivering the lyric “say, Drake, I hear you like ‘ em young”, Lamar stared right into the camera, dancing on the Canadian rapper’s rap-battle grave while sporting a chain with a massive pendant — a lower-case a.
The performance is all but sure to kick off more legal wrangling: Drake,  , the reigning highest-grossing rapper, recently filed a bombshell defamation suit against his own record label Universal Music Group, which also represents Lamar.
Although Drake is notably suing UMG and not Lamar himself, questions persisted leading up to the Super Bowl about whether performing the song on one of the biggest international stages might lead to more legal action.
– Uncle Sam, surprise protestor –
“Not Like Us” dominated the set but it was also a performance that paid homage to the 37-year-old rapper’s expansive oeuvre.
The composer, who was born in Compton, California, is one of the most influential writers of contemporary music, with his verses providing personal reflections on structural poverty and systemic issues like race relations.
The Black Lives Matter movement was sung by his powerful lyricism, which made many people feel like the voice of their generation.
Samuel L. Jackson, the actor who portrayed Uncle Sam, a character that has frequently been depicted in military propaganda, was one of the stars who brought some of that energy to the Super Bowl stage.
Lamar used the platform to make a more symbolic critique of the marginalized treatment of both hip-hop and Black Americans as a whole rather than directly mentioning Donald Trump, who had just begun his second year of presidency.
“No, no, no, no, noooo. Too loud, too reckless, too ghetto. Mr Lamar, do you really know how to play the game? The costumed Jackson jeered at one point as they “then tighten up”.
At one point, dancers dressed in red, white, and blue and formed a formation representing the American flag.
The artist brought SZA, who he is scheduled to tour with, onstage before his climactic rendition of “Not Like Us,” which just one week earned Lamar five Grammys.
Their duet included a performance of “All the Stars”, their hit off the “Black Panther” soundtrack.
Serena Williams, a tennis legend who also hails from Compton, made another notable comeo and is thought to have briefly dated Drake.
A protestor who raised a flag in support of Gaza and Sudan while performing on the set also punctuated the set, according to production company Roc Nation, who told AFP that the scene had not been practiced.
The NFL reported that the protestor was a member of the 400-person field cast and that “the person hid the item on his person and unveiled it late in the show.”
In AFP photos, the protestor was seen posing with the flag with the words “Gaza” and “Sudan” on top of Lamar’s center car.
Source: Channels TV
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