Who is Kendrick Lamar? Everything to know about Super Bowl 59's halftime performer

His hard work may have let Lil Wayne down, but that doesn't mean he'll sit down and be humble.

In just under a week, Kendrick Lamar will take the stage for one of his biggest career performances: the 2025 Super Bowl halftime show. He'll be the headliner for the show on Super Bowl Sunday, and R&B singer/songwriter SZA will join him as a special guest.

The Super Bowl will be something of a culmination of a massive year for Lamar, who made headlines last spring for his back-and-forth feud with fellow rapper Drake. He also just released his sixth studio album in late November and is preparing for an upcoming North America tour.

USA TODAY Sports has all of the info that curious NFL fans need to know about Lamar here, in one place.

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Where is Kendrick Lamar from?

Lamar is a native of Compton, California.

Has Kendrick Lamar done the Super Bowl before?

Lamar has never been the sole headliner at the Super Bowl halftime show before, though he has been on stage for a previous halftime show performance.

During the Super Bowl 56 halftime show in Los Angeles three years ago, Lamar performed alongside other West Coast and rap/R&B icons: Dr. Dre, Snoop Dogg, Eminem and Mary J. Blige. Anderson .Paak and 50 Cent also made appearances.

Lamar will be the first solo rap artist in history to headline the Super Bowl when he takes the stage next Sunday.

How much did Kendrick Lamar get paid for the Super Bowl?

Lamar won't be paid for his Super Bowl halftime show performance, but no artist ever is.

The NFL pays for travel expenses for the performer(s) and has a budget for the production as a whole, but the performers themselves do not make money for their halftime shows.

Kendrick Lamar Super Bowl setlist

Lamar has not announced a Super Bowl halftime show setlist, and he likely does not plan to.

However, there are some songs that are likely features in his upcoming performance. "Not Like Us," Lamar's biggest song from his rap beef with Drake, is a near-lock to be included in the setlist.

Outside of that, songs like "squabble up" and "tv off" from his most recent album, "GNX," are also strong contenders. Among Lamar's most frequently performed songs on tour are "HUMBLE." from his fourth studio album, "DAMN." and "Alright" from his third album, "To Pimp a Butterfly." Those are also likely inclusions for his Super Bowl performance in New Orleans.

In addition, SZA's inclusion as a special guest means that she and Lamar will almost certainly perform one of their seven collaborations. The most likely contenders there are "All the Stars" from the "Black Panther" soundtrack, "luther" or "gloria" from "GNX" or "30 for 30" from SZA's latest project, "Lana."

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How tall is Kendrick Lamar?

Lamar indicates that he is 5-foot-5 in his 2022 song "Savior."

"I'ma stand on it, 6'5" from 5'5"," he raps.

In the context of the song, Lamar is saying he stands on his beliefs rather than "back pedal[ing]" when confronted. This ability to "stand on it," he says, elevates his smaller stature by a full foot.

How old is Kendrick Lamar?

Lamar is 37 years old. He will turn 38 on June 17.

Is Kendrick Lamar married?

Lamar and his partner Whitney Alford, are a very private couple, so their marital status is not currently clear.

What is known is that he and Alford were high school sweethearts and have been engaged since 2015, which he confirmed in an interview on "The Breakfast Club" radio show on Power 105.1.

How many Grammys did Kendrick Lamar win?

Lamar was nominated for seven Grammy Awards this year: five for his hit song "Not Like Us" and two more for "Like That," his song with Future and Metro Boomin.

Prior to this year's awards show, Lamar has been nominated for 57 Grammys and won 17 of them. At the 2023 Grammys, he was awarded the Grammy for Best Rap Album for "Mr. Morale & the Big Steppers." He also won two more for Best Rap Song and Best Rap Performance for "The Heart Part 5."

How many streams does "Not Like Us" have?

"Not Like Us," Lamar's hit song from last May, set the record for most single-day streams for a hip-hop song (12.8 million) and most streams in a week by a rapper (81.2 millions) when it first came out.

In mid-January, the single hit one billion streams on Spotify, and, as of the time of writing, it's at 1.04 billion streams on the platform.

Apple Music doesn't share song statistics publicly, but "Not Like Us" was No. 1 on the platform's Global list of top songs of 2024.

On YouTube, the video containing official audio of the song has been viewed 194 million times, and the music video has been streamed 216 million times. The "Not Like Us" track on YouTube Music, the music streaming service under the Google/Alphabet umbrella, has 658 million plays.

Does Kendrick Lamar have kids?

Lamar has two kids with Alford. Their daughter, Uzi, was born in July 2019. Details are more sparse about their son, Enoch, but he is likely around two or three years old given his presence as an infant on the cover of Lamar's 2022 album "Mr. Morale & the Big Steppers."

When did Kendrick Lamar start rapping?

According to various interviews of Lamar from between 2011 and 2020, the earliest roots of Lamar's career as a rapper can be traced back to his time in elementary and middle school.

Some of his teachers at the time encouraged him to write more and introduced him to poetry. By high school, he had fully fallen in love with songwriting and rapping, and he was dead-set on making a career out of it, according to a 2020 profile by Marcus J. Moore in "The Nation."

In 2004 or 2005, Lamar and DJ/collaborator Dave Free put together a mixtape that he credits with helping him get his first record deal with Top Dawg Entertainment.

In 2011, he released his first studio album with Top Dawg, titled "Section.80."

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How many albums does Kendrick Lamar have?

Lamar has six studio albums in total, in addition to a self-title EP, five mixtapes, one compilation album and a movie soundtrack (for "Black Panther" [2016]).

These are the six studio albums, listed in order of release:

• "Section.80" (2011)

• "good kid, m.A.A.d city" (2012)

• "To Pimp a Butterfly" (2015)

• "DAMN." (2017)

• "Mr. Morale & the Big Steppers" (2022)

• "GNX" (2024)

Why do people call Kendrick Lamar "K.Dot"?

"K.Dot" was Lamar's initial stage name during his earliest years rapping in high school. He dropped the pseudonym in favor of using his first and middle names "because he felt like his initial moniker diverted attention from his actual identity," according to "XXL Magazine."

Lamar will still occasionally refer to himself as "K.Dot" (or just "Dot") in some of his recent music.

What record label is Kendrick Lamar signed to?

Lamar releases music under his own record label, "pgLang," which he and Free, his longtime collaborator, founded in 2020, and has a direct licensing agreement with Interscope.

He previously was signed to Top Dawg Entertainment and had a joint agreement with the aforementioned Interscope and Dr. Dre's label, Aftermath.

How many albums has Kendrick Lamar sold?

Album sales are a hard metric to track in the age of streaming and "album-equivalent units."

According to a Vanity Fair profile of Lamar from June 2018, the rapper had sold over 17.8 million albums at the time. Since then, he's released two albums: "Mr. Morale & the Big Steppers" and "GNX."

According to music magazine "Hits," "Mr. Morale" had been responsible for 1.06 million album-equivalent units by the end of 2022. "GNX," which came out in late November, reached 319,000 album-equivalent units by the end of its first week and crossed 500,000 in the weeks after.

Given that information, Lamar has sold somewhere around 20 million albums/album-equivalent units in his career.

Kendrick Lamar Pulitzer Prize

In 2018, Lamar was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for Music for his album "DAMN." It was the first piece of music outside of the classical or jazz genres to win the award.

On the Pulitzer Prize website the album is described as "a virtuosic song collection unified by its vernacular authenticity and rhythmic dynamism that offers affecting vignettes capturing the complexity of modern African-American life."

Kendrick Lamar tour

Lamar is set to begin a North American tour for his new album, "GNX," on April 19 at U.S. Bank Stadium in Minneapolis.

Titled the "Grand National Tour," it will feature both Lamar and R&B singer/songwriter SZA, who has been a longtime collaborator with the rapper.

The tour will consist of 23 shows, including two at MetLife Stadium in East Rutherford, New Jersey, three in Los Angles at SoFi Stadium and two at the Rogers Centre in Toronto. It is scheduled to conclude on June 18 at Northwest Stadium in Landover, Maryland.

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Who is Kendrick Lamar? Super Bowl 59 halftime show performer