Kendrick Lamar Goes Full Carpe Diem In Super Bowl Halftime With A Fresh Swipe At Drake, Appearances By Samuel L. Jackson & SZA – Review

Dominic Patten
·6-min read

Three years ago at the Super Bowl in Los Angeles, Kendrick Lamar was the home turf newbie on the halftime show hip-hop dream team of Dr. Dre, Snoop Dogg, Mary J. Blige, Eminem and 50 Cent. Today, in New Orleans, the top of his game Compton-born Pulitzer Prizer winner didn’t have to share the glory with anyone as he further solidified his dominance of the genre and the culture.

“This is the great American game” bellowed an Uncle Sam-clad Samuel L. Jackson as a tic-tac-toe board lit up the stadium and a red, white and blue dancer-surrounded Lamar appeared.

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(L-R) Samuel Jackson and Kendrick Lamar are seen onstage during Apple Music Super Bowl LIX Halftime Show at Caesars Superdome
(L-R) Samuel Jackson and Kendrick Lamar are seen onstage during Apple Music Super Bowl LIX Halftime Show at Caesars Superdome

Much more a successor to Lamar’s stunning Juneteenth performance in front of a jubilant Kia Forum in L.A. last summer than that Super Bowl LVI celebration of West Coast rap and the 50th anniversary of the global genre, today’s performance by Lamar was exactly the virtuoso display of catching the moment, the spotlight and the America 2025 that fans, the NFL and Jay-Z’s Roc Nation wanted.

Let’s be honest, as good as Lamar is (and he is so very good and on point), for everyone but Philadelphia Eagles fans, the halftime was guaranteed to be an improvement over the game so far. The Brotherly Love team have been kicking three peat-seeking and current champs Kansas City Chiefs all over the field 24-0 in the wipeout first and second quarters. A not impossible but very difficult deficit to climb out of for any team, even the Partick Mahomes-led Chiefs.

Still, this Black History Month, Lamar’s silver tongued and clearly considered presentation likely left Donald Trump scowling in his box seat and Prince smiling from where ever across the Great Divide, the Purple One is.

“The revolution is about to televised, you picked the right time, but you picked the wrong guy,” Lamar proclaimed, planting his flag with hits like “Humble,” “DNA,” “tv off” and more. Having said that, just like last year with Usher and Alicia Keys, Lamar was plagued by sound issues that left his vocals buried under the music. Also similar to 2024, the NFL production team went too tight on the headliner and his performers at the start. A multi-tiered spectacle in the stadium often was reduced to awards show scale. Thankfully by the time SZA showed up and the duo did ‘luther’ and ‘All The Stars’ off the Black Panther soundtrack with Serena Williams as one of the dancers, the audio glitches and perspective angles were resolved.

Those issues may have be dealt with, but even with the tightest security in the Western world in play tonight, a Palestinian flag-waving protester made it on the field during Lamar’s show, for a few minutes.

To that, with an audience that includes a few notables like that Chiefs fan Taylor Swift, Philly girl and former First Lady Dr. Jill Biden, Eagles fanatic Bradley Cooper, Adam Sandler, Rupert Murdoch, Kevin Costner and the spotlight-addicted Donald Trump, Lamar’s halftime show came with more anticipation and perhaps anxiety than any Super Bowl performance in nearly two decades. Even the newly minted and sharp-elbowed head of the FCC weighed in with a throwback to Janet Jackson scandalous stint on the Super Bowl XXXVII stage back in 2004.

Given 13 minutes to navigate a widely varied 15-year career in front of the biggest TV audience of the year and with Jay-Z, past collaborator Taylor Swift, Megan Thee Stallion and Paul McCartney among those watching in the 70,000-full Superdome and producer Mustard joining him on the field, the GNX artist seized the day and then the elephant in the stadium at one point about halfway through the halftime show.

Hot off his big Grammy wins a week ago and his beatdown of Drake in the past collaborators’ multi-track diss war, the big bet was if KDot would lose his “Not Like Us” lyrics accusing the former Degrassi High star of having sex with minors. “I want to perform their favorite song, but you know they love to sue,” KDot smirked – and then went for the gist of it with a leap over the actual term “pedophile” from the song.

Still, (sorry FCC) the message was lost on no one, as the crowd filled in the blanks – as Public Enemy’s Flavor Flav noted:

In fact, trying to getting in front of things, the Australia-touring Drake had his lawyers drop a pre-response ahead of the halftime show Sunday. Weak against the strength of the halftime show, the defeated Drake was hoping to put the legal stakes of the award-winning and chart-topping track in context with the defamation suit he’s filed against Universal Music Group.

“UMG is masquerading as a champion of artistic freedom by calling its actions merely ‘entertainment’, but there is nothing entertaining about pedophilia or child abuse in the real world,” the ‘Rich Baby Daddy’ performer’s attorneys exclaimed of the ongoing battle with Drake and Lamar’s mutual record company. “We are confident that the evidence we will ultimately present at trial, including information we’ve already learned and continue to receive since filing the lawsuit, will expose UMG’s gross prioritization of its own corporate profits and executive bonuses over its exclusively signed artists’ well-being and the truth.”

Song-strong as one would expect out of the Big Easy and with Beatle McCartney in the stands, Super Bowl 59 had already seen performances earlier from past halftime star Lady Gaga, Terrance Blanchard, brass bands, Harry Connick Jr, the national anthem from Jon Batiste and a rousing and poignant rendition of Black America’s unofficial anthem “Lift Every Voice & Sing” by Ledisi.

Still, it all seemed dimmed next to Lamar’s tour de force with its “tv off” ending and Game Over display bringing it all to a close.

Or, as the great Sam Jackson said today: “That’s what I’m talking about!”

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