With the Super Bowl game between the Philadelphia Eagles and Kansas City Chiefs being held Feb. 9, the highly anticipated halftime show was headlined by infamous rapper Kendrick Lamar.
As the halftime show begins, a PlayStation controller button appears on the screen where Samuel Leroy Jackson plays Uncle Sam, welcoming viewers to the American game. The first song Lamar played was “wacced out murals.” After that he played “squabble up,” followed by two of his well known hits “HUMBLE” and “DNA” with Lamar standing in the middle of a split American flag. His dancers throughout the performance wore red, white and blue to represent the divided country.
He played the song “euphoria” which was a diss song aimed at Aubrey Drake Graham, more commonly known by the name Drake, and then played “man at the garden.” Soon after he teased “Not Like Us,” but then stopped and said “they like to sue” in reference to Graham’s lawsuit against Universal Music Group (UMG) for overplaying and defamation.
The performance comes after his famous rap beef with Canadian rapper Graham, right off the heels of Lamar’s dropping hit album, which was released 3 months ago, called “GNX.”
Jackson came back and said “too loud, too reckless, too ghetto. Mr. Lamar, do you really know how to play the game? Then tighten up.” After that he played the song “luther” and “All The Stars” which rhythm and blues (R&B) singer Solána Imani Rowe, more commonly known as SZA, comes out to sing. Once that is over Jackson says, “That’s what America wants, nice calm you’re almost there don’t mess this.” Jackson wasn’t able to finish the statement because Lamar finally played “Not Like Us” which is also a diss song towards Graham. At one point he looks towards the camera and smiles while saying “say Drake.” During the song, tennis legend Serena Williams makes a cameo appearance crip walking.
Lamar wraps up his performance with the song “tv off.” The song’s producer Mustard comes out on the field while Kendrick and the crowd yell “MUSTARD,” and the words GAME OVER appear on the screen ending this year’s Super Bowl halftime show.
During the show there was a lot of symbolism happening which elicited strong reactions both positive and negative. No one can deny that this was the most watched Super Bowl halftime show ever with 133.5 million viewers beating Michael Jackson’s 133.4 million viewers performance back in 1993.
