Kendrick Lamar’s halftime show wasn’t just about dissing Drake
But somebody gotta do it.
Photo by Jamie Squire/Getty Images.
What a week it’s been for Kendrick Lamar. One Sunday he wins 5 Grammys. The next, he performs at the Super Bowl. And what a performance it was. If you somehow missed it, the show featured SZA, Samuel L. Jackson, as well as cameos from Serena Williams and DJ Mustard while Kendrick delivered an unrelenting 11 songs.
This performance came a few months after the headline-grabbing beef with Drake, a high-stakes rap battle that included eight songs from both parties across the span of 16 days. The battle hit its peak with the now legendary Not Like Us (released on my birthday, no less. What a present). Drake responded with The Heart Part 6 but it came off with just the amount of grit that a middle-schooler tells their rival, “I know you are, but what am I?”
Naturally, when the performance was aired, viewers focused on the parts directed at Drake. Kendrick of course saw this coming, and messed with the audience a bit for his own enjoyment. Halfway through the set he teases, “I want to play their favourite song but you know they like to sue” amid the Not Like Us strings to a roaring crowd.
But any fan of Kendrick Lamar knows that he wouldn’t waste such a high-profile opportunity on only a petty feud. “40 acres and a mule, this is bigger than the music”, he says himself. It’s known as the biggest stage in the US, and one hosted by a pretty conservative sports organisation. Yet by no means did he shy away from televising the revolution.
“I like to always carry that sense of making people listen but also see and think a little.”
He used the performance to frame the music industry, American culture and politics, himself, and football as cogs in something much larger, as he had a lot of fun in the process. As he should, coming off of a week-old Grammy sweep to now being the first solo rapper to perform in the Super Bowl.
He celebrates this by highlighting his most recent songs (six out of the 11 songs played were from GNX, released in November 2024) rather than performing a career-spanning medley like Rihanna’s record-breaking show in 2023.
This is in line with his value of presence, and respecting the past but not living in it. He tells Apple Music’s Nadeska and Ebro, “I love being present. It’s very hard for me to live in the past. (…) [When I’m making a record] I’m gonna make sure I’m present that particular time in the studio, in the booth, that I feel happy, that I feel energised, that I feel frustrated, you’re gonna feel it. [The role of an artist] is to carry that as an inspiration to people that may not have a voice”.
A peaceful protester lived by those words when he held up a Palestinian and Sudanese flag towards the end of Lamar’s performance. He was raising awareness to the American foreign policy and the suffering of those in Gaza and Sudan. He was tackled and banned for life from all NFL stadiums and events.
Although the protest was unplanned, it fulfilled Lamar’s prophetic claim a few minutes prior that “the revolution is about to be televised”. CAIR (The Council on American-Islamic Relations) took to X to show their support, saying, “We commend the Super Bowl performer who courageously and peacefully raised awareness about ongoing war crimes against the people of Gaza and Sudan.”
While this happened, Lamar enjoyed the closing track of the performance before smiling at the camera and declaring “game over”.
The performance was full of little Easter eggs: opening the show the same way as he started the HUMBLE. music video; Serena Williams’s revenge crip walk, the pgLang flags flashing briefly in the background, and much more.
But where the performance truly shines, is in his love for hip-hop. “I continue to do what I was doing 10 years ago,” he tells Nadeska and Ebro, “which is bettering myself, bettering the craft, and not looking at these bright lights.”
“This is me, this is Kendrick Lamar. I’m 37 years old, and I still feel like I’m elevating, I’m still on the journey. And I want that energy to ooze out into the television and to the people that are in that building.”
And it did.