\n<\/p>\n
Of course he performed \u201cNot Like Us.\u201d<\/p>\n
In the lead-up to Kendrick Lamar\u2019s headline performance at the Super Bowl LIX halftime show on Sunday night, most of the chatter focused on whether he would play the song that was effectively the knockout blow in his monthslong battle with Drake last year. The song that became Lamar\u2019s signature hit, and a generational anthem. The song that won both record and song of the year at the Grammys<\/a> just a week ago. The song that appeared to recalibrate hip-hop\u2019s power rankings, perhaps permanently.<\/p>\n So yes, Lamar played the song. Toward the end of the set, of course, building up anticipation with a couple of brief musical nods to it, toying with the audience\u2019s emotions and thirst.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n But what will always be remembered from this performance is not the musical choices Lamar made, or the aesthetics of his choreography, or the silhouettes of his outfit<\/a>. What will remain is his grin when he finally began rapping that song. It was wide, persistent, almost cartoonish in shape. The grin of a man having the time of his life at the expense of an enemy.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n Lamar is perhaps the most sober of all of hip-hop\u2019s contemporary greats, a ferocious storyteller who values tongue-tripping polemics and introspection; he is not exactly a beacon of joy. During the beef<\/a>, he appeared to take on the dismantling of Drake as necessary homework.<\/p>\n \u201cNot Like Us\u201d was a popped champagne cork, though. On the Super Bowl stage at the Caesars Superdome in New Orleans, it was hinted at, parceled out and then, finally, launched into with a Lamar idiom: \u201cThey tried to rig the game but you can\u2019t fake influence.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n And then, that smile. What a smile. His subsequent performance was jubilant and a bit naughty. When he rapped, \u201cSay, Drake, I hear you like \u2019em young,\u201d he looked hard into the camera while motioning downward with his left hand, as if patting the head of a child. He rapped the line naming Drake\u2019s associates and their flaws. Given what the song contends about Drake \u2014 it refers to him as a \u201ccertified pedophile,\u201d among other things \u2014 the decision to perform it was almost certainly heavily prelitigated. (Drake has sued the record label<\/a> behind both rappers for defamation for releasing and promoting the track.) And there were concessions made: Lamar did not rap the word \u201cpedophile,\u201d replacing it with a prerecorded scream, and the camera switched away from him just before he landed the end of the sing-songy punchline, \u201cA minorrrrrrr.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n It was quite a spectacle \u2014 perhaps the peak of any rap battle, ever. And that\u2019s not even counting the brief moment in which the tennis great (and rumored former Drake paramour) Serena Williams was onstage, Crip Walking along with glee.<\/p>\n Given that so much of Lamar\u2019s set, conceptually, came down to the question of \u201cNot Like Us,\u201d he mostly kept things curiously low-key the rest of the time. Rather than pack in each of his hits \u2014 there was no \u201cAlright\u201d or \u201cBitch, Don\u2019t Kill My Vibe,\u201d for example \u2014 he leaned on songs from his most recent LP, \u201cGNX\u201d<\/a>: \u201cMan at the Garden,\u201d \u201cPeekaboo\u201d and, at the very beginning of the set, a bit of an unreleased track that he used as album promotion.<\/p>\n SZA came out to perform two of their duets \u2014 \u201cLuther\u201d and \u201cAll the Stars\u201d \u2014 but they felt undercooked and almost pointedly nonideological. They could be read as a commentary on the sort of concessions artists \u2014 Black artists in particular, and rappers even more in particular \u2014 have historically had to make to ensure broader palatability and acceptance. (The halftime show had its first hip-hop headliner in 2022<\/a>.)<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n Lamar himself underscored that point, with the inclusion of a one-man Greek chorus: Samuel L. Jackson, dressed as Uncle Sam and goading both Lamar and the audience throughout the set.<\/p>\n Just after the two SZA songs, Jackson said, \u201cThat\u2019s what America wants \u2014 nice, calm. You\u2019re almost there \u2014 don\u2019t mess this \u2026\u201d which Lamar then interrupted with \u201cNot Like Us.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n This was Lamar\u2019s other winning stroke here: weaving the metanarratives of the night\u2019s performance into the performance itself. Should he perform a song filled with accusations that has become the subject of a defamation suit? Can a Black performer ethically perform at the halftime show of the Super Bowl, the crown jewel of the N.F.L., an institution that has taken on additional political valence after the Black Lives Matter movement and Colin Kaepernick\u2019s kneeling protests?<\/p>\n After \u201cSquabble Up,\u201d Jackson popped up to excoriate Lamar: \u201cToo loud, too reckless, too ghetto \u2014 Mr. Lamar, do you really know how to play the game?\u201d It was both jeer and caricature. And so Lamar followed with \u201cHumble.,\u201d during which his dancers \u2014 outfitted in red, white and blue tracksuits \u2014 took on the formation of the American flag.<\/p>\n At the top of the set, Lamar warned, \u201cThe revolution \u2019bout to be televised \u2014 you picked the right time but the wrong guy.\u201d But broadly speaking, though Lamar nodded to these larger struggles, he mostly limited his passions to his most personal one. This was one of music\u2019s biggest stages, freed up for vendetta.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n