Kendrick Lamar struck a chord at the Super Bowl, and it was definitely a major. The hip-hop legend triumphed in his halftime show at the big game in the New Orleans’ Caesar Superdome, in the middle of a lopsided Super Bowl where the Philadelphia Eagles ethered the Kansas City Chiefs. “The revolution about to be televised,” Lamar warned at the start of his halftime blowout. “You picked the right time but the wrong guy.” This halftime show had everything—Samuel L. Jackson as Uncle Sam, SZA singing, Serena Williams doing a crip walk on the side. But Lamar’s blitz was way more action-packed than the actual game, since all the Chiefs did was sit down and be humble.
Lamar’s equally lopsided beef with Drake was the center of the halftime show — he brilliantly wore a diamond chain around his neck with a lower-case “a,” as in “A minor.” The big drama was “will he or won’t he?” with regard to his biggest hit. Would he do “Not Like Us” and call Drake a pedophile in front of 100 million people? The answer was yes and no—Lamar delivered “Not Like Us,” yet cut the line “certified pedophile.”
But it was 13 minutes of Dot Big Trippin’ all the way. He squabbled up for a medley of hits including “DNA.,” “Euphoria,” “Man at the Garden,” and “Humble.” There were no surprises, nothing fancy, no guests (except the already-expected SZA and Mustard), no attempt at showmanship — Lamar kept it all about the music, with the lights all the way down, accompanied by a crew of dancers in red, white, and blue.
“Salutations!,” Samuel L. Jackson announced at the start, dressed up in a top hat. “This is your Uncle Sam. And this is the great American game!” Jackson was a presence all through the set, interrupting during “Squabble Up” to admonish him. “No no no!” Jackson yelled. “Too loud, too reckless, too ghetto! Mr. Lamar, do you really know how to play the game? Then tighten up!”
The last time Lamar performed at the Super Bowl, it was the Dr. Dre halftime throwdown of 2022, with Snoop Dogg, Eminem, 50 Cent, Mary J. Blige, and Anderson .Paak on drums. Every star took a spotlight moment — for Lamar, it was “Alright.” It was a fiery political statement in the midst of the NFL’s blatantly racist ban on Colin Kaepernick, after he began taking a knee to protest police brutality. Lamar’s line “we hate po-po” got censored, but “Alright” was still a startling moment. Later in the set, Eminem took a knee, an explicit shout-out to the Black Lives Matter movement. But “Alright” was the highlight of a historic halftime.
On his own, Lamar stayed away from political statements, pointedly leaving out “Alright.” The controversy was whether he’d go after Aubrey Graham. If there’s any good news for Drake, it’s that he was the co-star of Kendrick’s set without even showing up. He sued Lamar’s label—which is also his own label— over “Not Like Us.” In a statement released ahead of Lamar’s halftime performance, Drake’s lawyers said, “UMG is masquerading as a champion of artistic freedom by calling its actions merely ‘entertainment’, but there is nothing entertaining about pedophilia or child abuse in the real world.”
Lamar brought his own drama going into the Super Bowl. This is the first time any star has done the halftime show after already releasing a Number One album and complaining that nobody called to congratulate him on getting the Super Bowl gig except Nas. “I’ve always been very open about storytelling through all my catalog and my history of music,” he said last week. “And I’ve always had a passion about bringing that on whatever stage I’m on.”
There was controversy over the fact that hometown hero Lil Wayne didn’t get the Super Bowl gig in New Orleans. “It hurt, it hurt a whole lot,” Weezy stated in an Instagram post. At his Lil Weezyana Fest, he told the crowd, “It was ripped away from me.” Lamar fired back on GNX, in the opening track “Wacced Out Murals”: “Irony, I think my hard work let Lil Wayne down.” (In the same verse, he added “Snoop posted ‘Taylor Made,’ I pray it was the edibles”—maybe the same edibles that inspired Snoop’s cringestrophic anti-bigotry ad with Tom Brady?)
But he brilliantly milked the tension over “Not Like Us.” Uncle Sam Jackson declared, “Scorekeeper, deduct one life.” Then Lamar consulted with a four-woman team of experts (“Ladies!” “Yes, Dot?”), saying, “I wanna do they favorite song, but they love to sue.” He teased the keyboard riff (“yeah, THAT song”), then switched gears into the cameo for SZA, who joined him to sing “Luther” and “All the Stars.”
“That’s what I’m talking about!” Uncle Sam said. “That’s what America wants. Nice, calm.” But that’s when Dot went into “Not Like Us,” announcing, “It’s a cultural divide.” He pulled back on “pedophile,” which probably made the NFL’s legal team breathe easier, but comically hyped up the big line, “Tryna strike a chord and it’s probably a minor!” (The production team added a glaring “audience sing-along” sound cue for that line — but those are a long tradition at Super Bowl halftime shows, like sitcom laugh tracks, and the audience was mostly inaudlble for the rest of the performance.)
Lamar was the musical highlight of a Super Bowl that had plenty of weird pop-culture moments, like a godawful Mountain Dew commercial with Seal as a cartoon seal. The crowd-cams had the sight of Paul McCartney chatting with Adam Sandler, while Kevin Costner made a cute couple in the crowd with Pete Davidson.
Jon Batiste sang a beautiful National Anthem, the first performer to accompany himself on piano since Alicia Keys’ stretched it out into the all-time longest version in 2013. Batiste sang the line “the land of the freeee” three times, as if making it a pointed jab at the current president, who was attending the game. But he still managed to hit the under, a big feat in a year when the over/under line for the National Anthem has become one of the Super Bowl’s most popular prop bets.
Taylor Swift spent the game in a box with the Haim sisters and Ice Spice, loyally watching her team go down to defeat, in a down-home Daisy Dukes outfit. She was wearing a certain Chief’s initial chain ‘round her neck, chain ‘round her neck, as opposed to her upper thigh, where she wore the same chain to the Grammys a week ago. Really, Swift should have rushed down to the field to play QB for the Chiefs, since she did a better job of preparing for the big game. But make no mistake, it was Lamar’s night all the way. As Uncle Jam put it, this is the great American game — not just football, but hip-hop.
Set List
“Wacced Out Murals”
“Bodies”
“Squabble Up”
“Humble.”
“DNA.”
“Euphoria”
“Man at the Garden”
“Peekaboo”
“Luther”
“All the Stars”
“Not Like Us”
“TV Off”
From Rolling Stone US
