Kendrick Lamar showed out during its performance during Super Bowl Half -time show, registration SZASamuel L. Jackson, Serena Williams and mustard for an Ode to Compton on the world’s biggest stage.
The set, with its American flag color palette, consisted largely of tracks from his newly published album “GNX” and some loosians from his deeper catalog. With Jackson who served as a master in ceremonies (dressed as Uncle Sam, of course), Lamar led a robust team of backup dancers who slipped in and out of the formation as he toured his discography and gave the reproduction of “DNA”, “Peekaboo,” “,” “” “Crushes up” and “humble. “
The question of millions of dollars leading into Super Bowl: Would he, or would he not, perform “not like us”, the song where he accuses his enemy dragon of pedophilia, on the world’s biggest stage? Contract point: Why would he not? “Not Like Us” was the most culturally important song in 2024, with continued dominance into year after winning five Grammys including singing and record for the year.
And so he did it, and then some. Before he ripped through “Not Like Us”, the huge hit from last year’s back and forth with Drake, he stood in an X in the field and said: “I want to perform their favorite song, but you know they love to Sue,” Gesture Against the legal action that Drake took on the Universal Music Group to release and promote “not like us.
Which led to Victory Lap, the moment to solidify the decisive winner in the ongoing war war with Drake, and transformed the Super Bowl field into a block part like lots of dancers – plus Serena Williams – moved to the melody. (The implication is, of course, that Williams was rumored to have dated Date Drake earlier.) Even though he left the word “pedophile” under the track, let the audience call when they shouted “a minor”, and added insult to injury. To end? Lamar wrote off with “TV off”, grinning into the camera when “Game Over” enlightened the audience behind him.
Although the beef has largely dominated much of the cultural conversation over the past year, it was only a bit of the larger pie in Lamar’s half -time show, an endless, finely performed performance. The focus was largely on Lamar – in the past, musicians have turned the Super Bowl scene into a parade of surprise guests – when he started the show with an unreleased song presented in a teaser published to Youtube just hours before “GNX” dropped.
Lamar continued to stay stable in the middle of dancers to form the American flag under “humble.” He took over the stage, a long rectangular block dotted with lamps, for “Man at the Garden” and “Peekaboo”, which rapped in front of a group of men lying around one of the posts. SZA soon came up for “Luther” and “All The Stars” before Lamar hit his picture against the final zone.
This is not Lamar’s first Super Bowl Rodeo, which he showed up during the Super Bowl LVI half-time show 2022 along with a coterie of hip-hop and R&B legends. During the 15 -minute performance, he prone the scene with Dr. Dre, Snoop Dogg, Eminem, Mary J. Blige, 50 cents and Anderson Paak, which made a widescreen act that bridged generations.
Lamar’s performance on the Super Bowl comes on the heel of a year -long hot streak that began after his cultural -changing verse on Future and Metro Boomin’s “Like That”, which was released in March last year. On the track he took Drake and J. Cole to the task to include him in the “big three” of hip hop, a designation he rejected and in turn started a war of words between the trio.
While J. Cole quickly bent out of the fire line, Lamar and Drake went tit-for-the-few in the months that followed and released more and more scary diss tracks that lobbied accusations of infidelity and pedophilia. It all cumulated in May with the publication of Lamar’s “Not Like Us”, the mustard -produced track that quickly became both a West Coast song.
With the only hit from his tussle with Drake, Lamar became the argumentative victory of Spar as “Not Like Us” was an immediate crusher, breaking streaming discs and serving its first solo disc to meet No. 1 on Billboard Hot 100. Previously. previous. This month he took a victory laps at the Grammy Awards where he took home both singing and record for the year for “Not Like Us”, as well as three other winnings in genre categories.
In the midst of the success of “Not Like Us”, Lamar surprised his latest album “GNX” in November after rumors that he had been hard at work with a new project. “GNX” bent on top of Billboard 200 and became his fifth album in a row one, and all 12 songs debuted on Hot 100 including five in the top positions.
All this is to set the table for Lamar’s upcoming “Grand National Tour” with SZA, which starts on April 19 in Minneapolis, MN. The three will stop in Atlanta, East Rutherford and Los Angeles before being packaged in Washington, DC’s Northwest Stadium on June 18.
