Kendrick Lamar brought his Compton hometown to New Orleans as the halftime performer at Sunday’s Super Bowl LIX — the crowning achievement of a yearlong stretch in which hip-hop’s most proudly cerebral star ascended to new heights of pop renown.
The first rapper to headline pop music’s biggest stage as a solo act, Lamar, 37, spent much of his 13-minute set on the field at the Caesars Superdome flirting with whether or not he’d play “Not Like Us,” the knockout blow from his epic feud with Drake.
“I wanna perform their favorite song,” he said at one point of “Not Like Us,” in which he describes Drake as a pedophile, “but you know they love to sue.”
Kendrick Lamar and SZA perform onstage during Apple Music Super Bowl LIX Halftime Show at Caesars Superdome on February 09, 2025 in New Orleans, Louisiana.
(Cindy Ord / Getty Images)
Last year, “Not Like Us” spent two weeks atop Billboard’s Hot 100 on its way to racking up more than a billion streams on Spotify; last week, the song won Grammy Awards for record and song of the year — just the second rap track to take those awards in the ceremony’s six-and-a-half-decade history. Yet “Not Like Us” also spawned a federal lawsuit from Drake in which he accuses Universal Music Group, the record label both men record for, of defamation.
In the end, Lamar did perform “Not Like Us” on Sunday — and with a fellow Compton native in Serena Williams dancing to the song on the field — though he let the crowd take the word “pedophiles” in one of the song’s best-known lines.
Introduced by the actor Samuel L. Jackson in a red-white-and-blue Uncle Sam get-up, Lamar began the show crouched on a Buick Grand National, the car after which he titled his latest album. He performed his songs “Squabble Up,” “Humble,” “DNA,” “Euphoria,” “Man at the Garden” and “Peekaboo,” then welcomed the singer SZA, with whom he did “Luther” and “All the Stars” and with whom he’ll embark on a stadium tour this year.
Samuel Jackson and Kendrick Lamar are seen onstage during Apple Music Super Bowl LIX Halftime Show.
(Chris Graythen / Getty Images)
After “Not Like Us,” Lamar ended the show with “TV Off,” for which he was joined by the producer Mustard.
Sunday’s halftime show wasn’t Lamar’s first appearance at the Super Bowl. In 2022 the rapper was part of the all-star hip-hop extravaganza that Dr. Dre brought to Inglewood’s SoFi Stadium and which also featured Snoop Dogg, Eminem and Mary J. Blige. Both performances were produced as part of a long-term deal between the NFL and Jay-Z’s Roc Nation company — a partnership that raised eyebrows when it was announced in 2019 given Jay-Z’s earlier criticism of the way the league treated former San Francisco 49ers quarter Colin Kaepernick after Kaepernick began kneeling during the national anthem in protest of police violence toward Black people.
“I said no the Super Bowl / You need me, I don’t need you,” Jay-Z famously rapped in 2018 after declining an invitation to play the halftime show.
Mustard and Kendrick Lamar perform onstage during Apple Music Super Bowl LIX Halftime Show.
(Cindy Ord / Getty Images)
Yet Roc Nation’s handling of the NFL’s high-profile musical offerings has been widely praised for both the shows’ production value and for the diversity that Roc Nation has brought to the talent showcased at halftime. Lamar’s show was the sixth in a row to be headlined by an artist of color, after Usher in 2024, Rihanna in 2023, Dr. Dre in 2022, the Weeknd in 2021 and the duo of Shakira and Jennifer Lopez in 2020.
Before kickoff Sunday, Jon Batiste sang a jazzy rendition of the national anthem for which he accompanied himself on piano, and the duo of Trombone Shorty and Lauren Daigle performed a cheerful “America the Beautiful.” Lady Gaga also appeared in a pre-recorded segment that had her playing her song “Hold My Hand” on New Orleans’ Bourbon Street — the site of a terrorist attack on New Year’s Day that killed 14 people — while surrounded by police officers, firefighters, soldiers and other first responders.
