This year’s Super Bowl halftime show was performed by the legendary Kendrick Lamar. Lamar is most known for his famous hits ‘All the Stars’ featuring SZA and ‘Money Trees.’ He was given the opportunity to perform at the halftime show along with singer SZA. His performance was rooted in symbolism, disses, and controversy.
In 2024, Kendrick Lamar found himself in an ongoing feud with rapper Drake and they began writing diss tracks about each other. Lamar had serious allegations against Drake, and they went back in forth during the summer marking a high point in controversy against Drake for the serious allegations. Many people, began the tags ‘#TeamKendrick’ and ‘#TeamDrake.’ Lamar saw this opportunity to blast Drake publicly and rap his now most streamed song, Not Like Us during his performance at the halftime show. Many people believed that Kendrick should not have performed this song because it was too controversial. It is even alleged that Kendrick Lamar was warned not to. However, he did.
He began the performance by having his dancers ask him, “Are you ready for this?” and it played the beats and paused it, multiple times. He then ended up rapping the strong and the most notable moment from his performance is when he said, “Hey Drake!” with a large devious smile. Sophomore Taylor Ferrante says, “I thought this part was so funny because he was so excited to call him out. It was lowkey insane that he was that hype about it.” Many users on platforms like TikTok have been sharing this clip saying how hilarious it was that he was so excited to call out Drake at an event over 100 million people watched. Drake fans were furious that their favorite artist was being called out even calling Kendrick Lamar names for doing so. Obviously, he does not care because he feels as though he is calling out to the injustice Drake has caused to younger individuals.
Lamar’s performance was not only controversial, but it had symbols throughout. To begin, he wore a large chain with the letter “a.” Many people assumed it was for decoration, but it was a reference to the line in Not Like Us where he talks about Drake “Trying to strike a chord but it’s probably a minor.” Lamar meant this line metaphorically as Drake has been called out for hitting on underage people, and his chain references the minors Drake has talked to. Sophomore Bianca Kiley says, “I watched part of the halftime show and I thought it was so cool how he used this performance to have symbols within it.”
Overall, many people liked Lamar’s halftime show and the message that was being sent about how individuals in the music industry will try to exploit young people to benefit themselves and how you cannot trust everybody or look up to the people you once admired.
