Kendrick Lamar Pulled Off the Most Hip-Hop Halftime Show in Super Bowl History: Critic’s Take

As soon as the NFL announced Kendrick Lamar as the Super Bowl LIX Halftime Show headliner, fans and haters alike began to surmise just what the Compton MC would do with the 10 to 15 minutes allotted to him. Would he take time to honor some of rap legends who hailed from the Super Bowl host city of New Orleans? A small contingent believed Lil Wayne should have gotten the tap instead of Lamar, so, some thought, perhaps Lamar would bring out 504’s own as a show of respect.

Or would Lamar go the complete other direction and take time to really beef up his pop-star bonafides by bringing out some friends who are much more famous than he is? After learning that Jack Antonoff helped to produce his latest album, GNX, some thought maybe Taylor Swift would make her way down from the Chiefs box to the field. But, nah. What we got instead was an unadulterated Kendrick Lamar show. That is to say: Over 120 million people were treated to the first ever real and true rap concert masquerading as a Super Bowl Halftime Show.

During his Apple Music interview with Ebro Darden and Nadeska Alexis, Lamar said all the success of the past year was “just a continuum of who I am.” And if you’ve somehow missed out on what happened in rap in 2024, here’s a quick rundown: On the first of Future and Metro Boomin’s two collaboration albums, Kendrick Lamar hopped on a tracked called “Like That” and called out Drake, and, to a lesser extent, J. Cole for claiming to be the best. The song went No. 1 on the Billboard Hot 100 and reignited a long simmering beef with Drake that resulted in over six diss tracks between the two. The highlight of the battle was the DJ Mustard-produced “Not Like Us,” which also went No. 1 on the Hot 100 and saw Lamar cap off the beef with an incredible West Coast-tinged party track that garnered him five Grammys.

But, as Kendrick said, this was just a continuum of who he is. Almost more than any other rapper working today, Lamar embodies the ethos of hip-hop. He works to make each album and song count — making sure they not only make a statement about the times and the people living them, but say something different than the ones that came before them. He realizes the power of the position he holds and tries to make the most of the opportunities afforded to him. So it wasn’t a surprise to see Kendrick Lamar put on the most hip-hop halftime show we’ve ever seen. Only Kendrick Lamar would start a show on the biggest stage in the world with a verse from an unreleased song, a verse that ended with him rapping, “the revolution about to be televised, you picked the right time, but the wrong guy,” a bar that gives a wink and a nod to the situation at hand: Lamar being the first rapper to headline the Super Bowl Halftime Show on his own.

After performing “Squabble Up,” Samuel L. Jackson, playing an Uncle Sam character, chastised Lamar for making his performance “too ghetto” and asked him if he really knew “how to play the game.” The rapper answered by performing two of his other Hot 100 chart toppers, “Humble” and “DNA” before going straight into “Euphoria.”

The conversation leading up to the show was whether or not Lamar would perform “Not Like Us.” In the months since its release, Drake has sued Universal Music Group — Kendrick Lamar and Drake’s record label — for allegedly defaming him by releasing and promoting a song that claims he fraternizes with pedophiles. Very few people thought for a moment that he would perform “Euphoria,” despite the release reaching No. 3 on the Hot 100. But he did, with a group of dancers stepping to impeccable choreography. From there he went into a GNX medley including “Man at the Garden” and “Peekaboo” before telling the audience, “I want to perform their favorite song, but you know they love to sue” as the beat for “Not Like Us” quickly pulsated in and out.

He took the temperature down by instead going into his and SZA’s most recent hit “Luther” from GNX, and their former hit “All the Stars” from the Black Panther soundtrack. “Tell me what you gone do to me, confrontation is nothing new to me,” he rapped before SZA belted the cinematic chorus. As that wrapped, Uncle Sam popped back up, pleased that Lamar opted for a more pop-oriented direction. It was then that Kendrick began to freestyle a call-and-response verse with some of the dancers asking him, “You really about to do it?” and Lamar answering, “They tried to rig the game, but you can’t fake influence.”

Then, the moment millions were waiting for: Kendrick Lamar performed “Not Like Us” to over 100 million people around the world. There was a lot to take in as this was all happening: The dancers draped in the colors of the American flag all stepping in metronomic precision. The camerawork reminiscent of his “Pop Out” concert from last year. Serena Williams crip walking. Or Lamar looking directly at the camera as he rapped, “Say, Drake, I hear you like ‘em young.”  After months of speculation, it felt like an incredible cap on an incredible run that started nearly a year ago.

Was it a perfect halftime performance? Perhaps not. Despite him seemingly rapping without a backing track, playing a few of his chart-topping hits and bringing out a fellow chart-topper in SZA, the set would have benefited from a real and true surprise — something that would have made even the most hardened Kendrick hater say “wow.” But even without pulling a rabbit out of a hat, Kendrick Lamar managed to pull of the rarest feat: He brought an unfiltered hip-hop show to the Super Bowl. Who knows when we’ll see something like this again.  

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