Kendrick Lamar has had one of the best year-long runs of any rapper. From the beef last spring with Drake to ending it with a mega-hit like “Not Like Us,” Lamar has taken off. Since the Drake rap beef, Lamar has recently been on a victory lap with “Not Like Us” winning five Grammys, placing with a number one song on the Billboard charts.
This background plays directly into Lamar’s great halftime show. Throughout the entire show, he teases the moment that he will play the song “Not Like Us,” and it makes the moment it finally happens an all-time best halftime show moment.
Before “Not Like Us,” Lamar performed songs from his newest album, GNX. This started with the song “wacced out murals,” then an unreleased snippet and “squabble up.” I found it strange that Lamar started with the slower “wacced out murals” over the faster song with a better beat, “squabble up.”
After these GNX songs, Lamar switched to songs from one of his most well-known albums, “DAMN.” Both “HUMBLE.” and “DNA.” were played. While I could list all the songs, I found some of them to be some odd choices, especially after these bigger songs, to go with “peekaboo” and “man at the garden” even if they are from “GNX.”
I found the most effective part of the halftime show, especially after rewatching it, to be the symbolism used throughout the show, with the American flag imagery. This was really well contrasted by Samuel L. Jackson in an Uncle Sam outfit.
The one image that immediately stuck with me was the background dancers making up the American flag, with Lamar standing directly in the middle. This is just one of many different instances that Lamar did throughout the halftime show to get the main point of his performance across, even opening with, “The revolution about to be televised, you picked the right time but the wrong guy.” Lamar’s point is made subtly that black voices are silenced to try and appease “Uncle Sam,” proven by the line “Too loud, too reckless, too ghetto,” said by Jackson.
Lamar has always taken to very political messaging with his music, and doing it on the biggest stage in the world in the way he did, is partially why millions love him.
The performance ended with SZA and Lamar singing the hit song “Luther” before Lamar went on to sing “Not Like Us” with the biggest grin I have seen in my life.
While the main performance has a lot to say about the state of Black voices in America, he ends it with a direct, final shot to Drake. Because, in the words of Lamar, it is “Game Over” and he has won.
Rating: 8/10
