Kendrick Lamar at the Super Bowl. Photo by Jamie Squire/Getty Images
Just before Kendrick Lamar played his halftime show at the Super Bowl, I saw a commercial for a weight loss program soundtracked by Childish Gambino’s “This Is America.” Its tone is one of tempered anti-establishment and hope for a better path amid corruption and a literally sick country. Such an ad airing in the United States would have been unimaginable a decade-and-a-half ago when Kendrick Lamar first emerged, but then again, so would have a halftime show led by one of the founding members of an L.A rap collective called Black Hippy. In that 15 years, the world has grown more receptive to (and sought to capitalize on) the righteous fury and hopeful conviction Lamar channeled in becoming one of the most important artists of his generation; with his 14-minute Super Bowl performance, Lamar neatly packaged himself as rap’s thoughtful conqueror, with no more or less provocation than necessary.
If anything, “conqueror” is too light a word. Lamar’s victory over Drake was sealed even before “Not Like Us” won five Grammys, including Song and Record of the Year. The song’s worldwide success gave the art of the diss track unprecedented new cultural presence, and hooked Lamar to the side of a rocket ship. Gone was the ambivalent savior era of Mr. Morale & the Big Steppers in favor of Proud Defender of the West Coast from the Canadian Menace. In Lamar’s telling, it was an opportunity to make hip-hop a sport again and flex his “the core definition” as an artist. The heat of his hatred was a warm fire and the world scurried shoulder-to-shoulder to bask in its glow.
As soon as the show started, it seemed familiar, a rare feeling when faced with something new from Kendrick Lamar. Our host for the show was Samuel L. Jackson, dressed as the Uncle Sam character. An embodiment of conservative Black respectability politics, Uncle Sam would criticize Lamar for being “too ghetto” (following the woefully censored “squabble up”) and praise him at moments like the “calm” duet with SZA. “Welcome to the American Game,” he bellowed at the show’s beginning, a reference to the balancing act Lamar is forced to endure as a Black entertainer.
Jackson’s role recalls Dave Chappelle’s in Lamar’s revelatory 2018 Grammy performance. Both men are oracles, providing ironic commentary on Lamar’s performance, but Jackson is cynical instead of encouraging. It’s one of the show’s several remixed elements, like the dancers draped red and the conspicuous presence of an American flag, that give the feeling of a big budget reboot rather than an entirely new production or even just an artist returning to familiar themes.
From his first moments on stage, Lamar let the world know he wasn’t quite ready to move on from the beef. His first bars were rapped as he perched on top of a GNX, the titular car from his most recent album: “It’s a cultural divide, Imma get it on the floor/ 40 acres and a mule, this is bigger than the music / They tried to rig the game, but you can’t fake influence.” Drake’s federal defamation lawsuits against UMG, label home to both himself and Lamar, led many to speculate whether or not the NFL would let him play the song. Here was the first indication of where he’d take things.
Lamar’s entire performance could be summarized by one lyric from the GNX track “man at the garden”: “Flip a coin, want the shameless me or the famous me?” Lamar’s set danced across his catalog like the coin sailing through the air, revealing both sides. At one moment, he was rapping “man at the garden” lyrics underneath a street light backed by a group of Black men with the white tees, baggy blue jeans, and gold teeth; the Fox News viewers at home probably started drafting their “worst halftime show ever!!!” tweets at that moment. Not long after, he was introducing “Not Like Us,” a song he had teased just minutes earlier, repeating in the introduction that performing the hit was “bigger than the music” – those same conservative dads were probably nodding their heads as they posted.
There was Lamar, skipping down the field, the star who bent pop to his commitment to competitive rapping. It was one of the show’s handful of powerful moments — the silent dignity of the “man at the garden” goons got me choked up, and the cameo from a crip-walking Serena Williams, herself the focus of respectability controversies, was perhaps the most iconic moment of the show.
The most epic, however, was the appearance of “Not Like Us.” After the sound of an entire stadium singing ”A minorrrrr was transmitted around the world, Drake’s lawyers may very well be drawing up new briefs. This was the coin landing perfectly on its side, a mixture of the “shameless” rapper raised in the ruthless streets of Compton and the fame he has cultivated. It’s one of the biggest music stories in years, and Lamar just added another wrinkle to it, with a Cheshire Cat grin plastered on his face.
I was more enthusiastic about the performance on repeat viewings. What at first seemed like rote checking of boxes and flashy gestures was revealed as a diligently crafted encapsulation of an artist that playfully challenged the audience’s expectations. Some of us may have hoped for a statement that shook the walls of the stadium, but what Kendrick Lamar delivered couldn’t be captured in a weight loss commercial. For a Super Bowl performance, that’s enough to make it a standout.
