The Super Bowl halftime show ran for over 30 years before endeavoring to spotlight its first rap verse. There were close calls: the 1993 Michael Jackson set featured Dangerous’s “Jam” but not its Heavy D guest spot; the 1998 Motown 40th anniversary celebration brought a singing Queen Latifah and Boyz II Men ducking out of “Motownphilly” before the Michael Bivins rhyme; the 2001 Aerosmith edition featured Mary J. Blige, Britney Spears, *NSYNC, and Nelly poking fun at the institution in a pre-recorded skit where Chris Rock interrupted vocal warmups to fuss, “This is way too white for me. We gotta get some hip-hop up in here.” Jay-Z and Roc Nation’s era of Grammy-grade halftime shows have managed this methodically, with a balanced slate of performers largely avoiding headline-grabbing incidents. But it cynically cashed the political collateral of Colin Kaepernick’s protest movement out for advertising and representation chips, opening the door to empty liberal pandering, like spraying “END RACISM” in the end zone during the big game (at least until that sentiment became radioactive).
This year, the Super Bowl booked Compton firebrand Kendrick Lamar, offering a former award-show rabble-rouser an audience with President Trump in attendance. But there was no reason to expect the rapper who barreled into autumn with the brisk, icy GNX to revert back to the prickly messaging and radical iconography he favored a decade ago. That artist ignited the ire of Fox News hosts at the 2015 BET Awards, performing To Pimp a Butterfly’s “Alright” on top of a spray-painted cop car, and later denounced their fear-mongering on “DNA” from 2017’s DAMN. 2022’s Mr. Morale and the Big Steppers signaled interest in leaving that incarnation of Lamar behind. The new one wasn’t eager for an overtly political gesture under the president’s nose. War with Drake last spring didn’t just burst the OVO boss’s wiseguy bubble, it was the final nail in the coffin of Kendrick’s lawful-good alignment. “Not Like Us” is #DarkWoke, an image of justice sketched out through negative contrasts.
Halftime show history was made with the diss track, albeit neatly. Narration from Samuel L Jackson introduced a nervous Uncle Sam molded after a character from Bulworth or Bamboozled, struggling to talk the rapper out of an imminent moment of crassness. Jackson warned against the show getting too “ghetto” but the real American president didn’t seem bothered. The actor’s appearances leaned into the dark satire peppering 2015’s Butterfly, but the set list cut toward the last seven years, bolstering a perhaps too-hefty chunk of GNX with hits from DAMN. and the Black Panther soundtrack. Uncle Sam was only teasing the song everyone had already tuned in for. It was clear the show would cut exactly this way before anyone took the stage.
It looked like Kendrick was more interested in the aesthetics of the cover art of To Pimp a Butterfly than the acrimonious complaints of songs like “The Blacker the Berry.” Flanked by dancers in red, white, and blue, he teased an air of Americana from the optics of street life, marrying “The Stars and Stripes Forever” to “We’re All in the Same Gang.” The gentle reminder that gang culture is just as American as the flag wasn’t loud enough to rattle anyone in attendance demolishing legislation and programs crafted with the betterment of these communities in mind.
No one has put up much of a fuss with the halftime platform since 2017, when Lady Gaga sang “Born This Way” and “This Land Is Your Land” during the first Trump administration. It is simply more closely attuned to mass taste and better equipped to slide a more adult-feeling set past censors. This current era is no more interested in smoke than the people who booked George Burns, Mickey Rooney, Chubby Checker, and an Elvis impersonator throughout the late ’80s. The dancer detained for sneaking a flag in support of Gaza and Sudan onto the field was the lone acknowledgment of chaos in the world beyond the show.
The primary message this year’s halftime show communicated is that Kendrick Lamar had a banner year (but Drake didn’t) and you should stream his latest stuff and catch him on tour with SZA in a stadium near you. It was Super Bowl business as usual, well-planned branding synergy meeting the celebration of musical virtuosity. It put an exclamation point on the squabble with Drake, taking the “A minor” (but not the “certified pedophiles”) line all the way to music’s biggest stage with a crip-walking Serena Williams, an Aubs ex whose husband, Alexis Ohanian, was dissed on the “Family Matters” rapper’s Her Loss album in 2022. The mellifluous accompaniment from GNX tour co-star SZA on “Luther” and “All the Stars” dovetailed with the reissue of SOS Deluxe: Lana. Kendrick and SZA came to mine gold from last spring’s rift, not to rock anyone’s boat.
While it’s nice to have Kendrick Lamar back outside more often — as Drake noted in “The Heart Part 6”: “At least your fans are getting some raps out of you” — the sense that this was won by turning the old fire down a few degrees itches as much as getting the GNX clunker “Peekaboo” but no Black Hippy or songs from the front half of the catalogue. Kendrick probably skipped “Alright” last night because he played it at Super Bowl LVI, but that song and its spirit of joy snatched out of the jaws of doom sure would’ve hit the spot. The early 2010s blog-era fan sits in awe of the realization of the loftiest dreams anyone had for the guy; the terrified 2025 observer pines for the version whose politics were neither palatable nor predictable.
Correction: A previous version of this story incorrectly listed “XXX” as part of the setlist.