The first rap artist to perform at the NFL’s biggest solo show made Drake’s “Not Like Us” the centerpiece of his performance, leaving out a deeper statement.
Ahead of Kendrick Lamar’s halftime performance at Super Bowl LIX on Sunday night, there was much talk about whether he would perform the song that became the punchline in his months-long feud with Drake last year. The song became Lamar’s biggest hit and the anthem of a generation. It won Grammys last week for Record and Song of the Year.
The song that seemingly redefined hip-hop forever.
Yes, Lamar played that song. Towards the end of the show, the tension was of course heightened with a few short musical interludes that played on the audience’s emotions and desires.
But it wasn’t Lamar’s musical choices, the aesthetics of his choreography, or the silhouette of his outfit that will be remembered forever. He had only a small smile left on his lips when he finally started rapping the song. It was broad, lingering, and almost caricature-like.
The smile of a man reveling in the loss of his enemy.
Lamar is perhaps the most serious artist in modern hip-hop, a powerful storyteller who values compelling, introspective debate; it’s not exactly a source of joy. During the fight, he apparently took on the task of taking down Drake, considering it a necessary homework assignment.
“Not Like Us” is the name of the cork that pops out of a champagne bottle. On the Super Bowl stage at Caesars Superdome in New Orleans, Lamar’s idiom was proposed, presented, and finally used: “They tried to rig the game, but you can’t fake influence.”
And then that smile. What a smile. His next performance was playful and a little mischievous. As he rapped, “Hey Drake, I hear you like kids,” he looked into the camera while lowering his left hand as if he was stroking a child’s head. He read a passage that listed Drake’s associates and their transgressions.
Considering the song is about Drake — calling him, among other things, a “full-blown pedophile” — the decision to perform it was probably deliberate. (Drake sued both rappers’ management companies for defamation over the release and promotion of the song.) And some concessions were made: Lamar didn’t rap the word “pedophile,” replacing it with a prerecorded scream, and the camera panned away from him just before he finished his one-liner: “A minor.” It was an extraordinary spectacle, perhaps the pinnacle of any rap battle. And that’s not to mention the brief moment when tennis legend (and Drake’s rumored lover) Serena Williams appeared onstage on Crip Walking with Glee.
Considering that much of Lamar’s set focused on the “Not Like Us” question, the rest of his performance was pretty subdued. Instead of cramming in all of his hits (there was no “Alright” or “Bitch, Don’t Kill My Vibe,” for example), he leaned on songs from his latest album, GNX: “Man at the Garden,” “Peekaboo,” and, at the beginning of the show, a rarely released track he used to promote the album.
SZA took the stage to perform her two duets, “Luther” and “All the Stars,” but they sounded raw and almost deliberately devoid of ideology. It could be seen as a commentary on the concessions artists, especially black artists and rap artists in particular, have historically had to make to gain wider acceptance. (2022 marked the first time a hip-hop star performed during the halftime show.)
Lamar himself emphasized this point by bringing in a man of Greek descent for the chorus: Samuel L. Jackson, who dressed up as Uncle Sam and repeatedly egged both Lamar and the audience on throughout the performance. “This is what America wants – peace and quiet,” SZA Jackson said two songs into the song. “You’re almost there – don’t mess it up…” Lamar interrupted with “Not Like Us.” It was another winning move by Lamar: weaving the metaphysical content of the night’s performance into the performance itself.
Should he have performed a song that was so charged and the subject of a defamation lawsuit? Could a black artist ethically perform during the halftime of the Super Bowl, the NFL’s most prestigious game, an event that has taken on greater political significance in the wake of the Black Lives Matter movement and the Colin Kaepernick protests? After “Squabble Up,” Jackson jumped in to criticize Lamar: “Too loud, too reckless, too rude — Mr. Lamar, do you really know how to play this game?” It was both a mockery and a caricature. Lamar then performed “Humble,” during which his dancers — dressed in red, white, and blue tracksuits — formed the shape of the American flag. At least one halftime show attendee had other ideas about how to use the show to promote the show. Tova