{"id":133328,"date":"2025-02-10T00:05:53","date_gmt":"2025-02-10T05:05:53","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.cyberlego.com\/web\/2025\/02\/10\/kendrick-lamar-pulled-off-the-most-hip-hop-halftime-show-in-super-bowl-history-critics-take-2\/"},"modified":"2025-02-10T00:05:53","modified_gmt":"2025-02-10T05:05:53","slug":"kendrick-lamar-pulled-off-the-most-hip-hop-halftime-show-in-super-bowl-history-critics-take-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.cyberlego.com\/web\/2025\/02\/10\/kendrick-lamar-pulled-off-the-most-hip-hop-halftime-show-in-super-bowl-history-critics-take-2\/","title":{"rendered":"Kendrick Lamar Pulled Off the Most Hip-Hop Halftime Show in Super Bowl History: Critic\u2019s\u00a0Take"},"content":{"rendered":"

<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n
\n

\n\tAs soon as the NFL announced Kendrick Lamar<\/a> as the Super Bowl LIX Halftime Show headliner, fans and haters alike began to surmise just what the Compton MC would do with the 10 to 15 minutes allotted to him. Would he take time to honor some of rap legends who hailed from the Super Bowl host city of New Orleans? A small contingent believed Lil Wayne should have gotten the tap instead of Lamar, so, some thought, perhaps Lamar would bring out 504\u2019s own as a show of respect. <\/p>\n

\n
\n

\n

\t\t\t\t\tRelated\t\t<\/p>\n<\/h3><\/div>\n

\n

\t\t\t<\/p>\n

\n
\n
\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\"Kendrick<\/p><\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>\n

\n
\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n
\n

\n

\t\t\t\t\tKendrick Lamar Caps Off Victory Lap With Searing Super Bowl Halftime Show Featuring SZA, Samuel L\u2026\t\t<\/p>\n<\/h3><\/div>\n

\t\t<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div><\/div>\n

\n\tOr would Lamar go the complete other direction and take time to really beef up his pop-star bonafides by bringing out some friends who are much more famous than he is? After learning that Jack Antonoff helped to produce his latest album, GNX, <\/em>some thought maybe Taylor Swift<\/a> would make her way down from the Chiefs box to the field. But, nah. What we got instead was an unadulterated Kendrick Lamar show. That is to say: Over 120 million people were treated to the first ever real and true rap concert masquerading as a Super Bowl Halftime Show.<\/p>\n

\n\tDuring his Apple Music interview<\/a> with Ebro Darden and Nadeska Alexis, Lamar said all the success of the past year was \u201cjust a continuum of who I am.\u201d And if you\u2019ve somehow missed out on what happened in rap in 2024, here\u2019s a quick rundown: On the first of Future and Metro Boomin\u2019s two collaboration albums, Kendrick Lamar hopped on a tracked called \u201cLike That\u201d and called out Drake, and, to a lesser extent, J. Cole for claiming to be the best. The song went No. 1 on the Billboard Hot 100<\/a> and reignited a long simmering beef with Drake that resulted in over six diss tracks between the two. The highlight of the battle was the DJ Mustard-produced \u201cNot Like Us,\u201d which also went No. 1 on the Hot 100 and saw Lamar cap off the beef with an incredible West Coast-tinged party track that garnered him five Grammys.<\/p>\n

\n\tBut, as Kendrick said, this was just a continuum of who he is. Almost more than any other rapper working today, Lamar embodies the ethos of hip-hop. He works to make each album and song count \u2014 making sure they not only make a statement about the times and the people living them, but say something different than the ones that came before them. He realizes the power of the position he holds and tries to make the most of the opportunities afforded to him. So it wasn\u2019t a surprise to see Kendrick Lamar put on the most hip-hop halftime show we\u2019ve ever seen. Only Kendrick Lamar would start a show on the biggest stage in the world with a verse from an unreleased song, a verse that ended with him rapping, \u201cthe revolution about to be televised, you picked the right time, but the wrong guy,\u201d a bar that gives a wink and a nod to the situation at hand: Lamar being the first rapper to headline the Super Bowl Halftime Show on his own.<\/p>\n

\n\tAfter performing \u201cSquabble Up,\u201d Samuel L. Jackson, playing an Uncle Sam character, chastised Lamar for making his performance \u201ctoo ghetto\u201d and asked him if he really knew \u201chow to play the game.\u201d The rapper answered by performing two of his other Hot 100 chart toppers, \u201cHumble\u201d and \u201cDNA\u201d before going straight into \u201cEuphoria.\u201d <\/p>\n

\n\tThe conversation leading up to the show was whether or not Lamar would perform \u201cNot Like Us.\u201d In the months since its release, Drake has sued Universal Music Group<\/a> \u2014 Kendrick Lamar and Drake\u2019s record label \u2014 for allegedly defaming him by releasing and promoting a song that claims he fraternizes with pedophiles. Very few people thought for a moment that he would perform \u201cEuphoria,\u201d despite the release reaching No. 3 on the Hot 100. But he did, with a group of dancers stepping to impeccable choreography. From there he went into a GNX<\/em> medley including \u201cMan at the Garden\u201d and \u201cPeekaboo\u201d before telling the audience, \u201cI want to perform their favorite song, but you know they love to sue\u201d as the beat for \u201cNot Like Us\u201d quickly pulsated in and out.<\/p>\n

\n\tHe took the temperature down by instead going into his and SZA\u2019s most recent hit \u201cLuther\u201d from GNX, <\/em>and their former hit \u201cAll the Stars\u201d from the Black Panther <\/em>soundtrack. \u201cTell me what you gone do to me, confrontation is nothing new to me,\u201d he rapped before SZA belted the cinematic chorus. As that wrapped, Uncle Sam popped back up, pleased that Lamar opted for a more pop-oriented direction. It was then that Kendrick began to freestyle a call-and-response verse with some of the dancers asking him, \u201cYou really about to do it?\u201d and Lamar answering, \u201cThey tried to rig the game, but you can\u2019t fake influence.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n
\n

\n

\t\t\t\t\tRelated\t\t<\/p>\n<\/h3><\/div>\n

\n

\t\t\t<\/p>\n

\n
\n
\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\"Kendrick<\/p><\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>\n

\n
\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n
\n

\n

\t\t\t\t\tKendrick Lamar\u2019s 2025 Super Bowl Halftime Show: Best Photos From the\u00a0Performance\t\t<\/p>\n<\/h3><\/div>\n

\t\t<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div><\/div>\n

\n\tThen, the moment millions were waiting for: Kendrick Lamar performed \u201cNot Like Us\u201d to over 100 million people around the world. There was a lot to take in as this was all happening: The dancers draped in the colors of the American flag all stepping in metronomic precision. The camerawork reminiscent of his \u201cPop Out\u201d concert from last year. Serena Williams crip walking. Or Lamar looking directly at the camera as he rapped, \u201cSay, Drake, I hear you like \u2018em young.\u201d \u00a0After months of speculation, it felt like an incredible cap on an incredible run that started nearly a year ago.<\/p>\n

\n\tWas it a perfect halftime performance? Perhaps not. Despite him seemingly rapping without a backing track, playing a few of his chart-topping hits and bringing out a fellow chart-topper in SZA, the set would have benefited from a real and true surprise \u2014 something that would have made even the most hardened Kendrick hater say \u201cwow.\u201d But even without pulling a rabbit out of a hat, Kendrick Lamar managed to pull of the rarest feat: He brought an unfiltered hip-hop show to the Super Bowl. Who knows when we\u2019ll see something like this again. \u00a0<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

Aller \u00e0 la source<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

As soon as the NFL announced Kendrick Lamar as the Super Bowl LIX Halftime Show headliner, fans and haters alike began to surmise just what the Compton MC would do with the 10 to 15 minutes allotted to him. Would he take time to honor some of rap legends who hailed from the Super Bowl […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[17],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-133328","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-musique","et-doesnt-have-format-content","et_post_format-et-post-format-standard"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cyberlego.com\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/133328","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cyberlego.com\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cyberlego.com\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cyberlego.com\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cyberlego.com\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=133328"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.cyberlego.com\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/133328\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cyberlego.com\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=133328"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cyberlego.com\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=133328"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cyberlego.com\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=133328"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}