Kendrick Lamar Televised His Revolution On The World’s Biggest Stage

Ever since he was coronated as the new King of West Coast rap over a decade ago, Kendrick Lamar has lived up to his own hype. Whether winning accolades in the name of hip-hop, using his spotlight to make pointed political statements or conjuring up the most savage rap beef since Tupac and Biggie (and coming out victorious), the Compton superstar has a knack for being the moment — and defining the next.

Lamar did so in 2024, when he squabbled with rap adversary Drake. He punctuated the century’s most sensational battle with an eviscerating diss track unlike any we’ve ever seen (“Not Like Us” won a record five Grammy Awards last weekend) and restored rap’s competitive spirit. 

The culture-shifting aftermath — which included the rap titan’s victory lap music video and the debut performance of his chart-topping diss at “The Pop Out” concert on Juneteenth — paved the way for Lamar to perform at the Super Bowl LIX halftime show in New Orleans Sunday night, upping his milestone tally yet again.

We can argue that the opportunity arose solely because of Drake and Lamar’s verbal sparing last year. But even without the controversy, the latter’s remarkable career run was enough to clinch him a headlining spot that’s only been awarded to music’s upper echelon. 

The event’s timing, coinciding with his epic year, was too perfect to pass up.

Thus, excitement bubbled after the NFL declared Lamar the 2025 Super Bowl halftime entertainment, a first for a solo hip-hop act.

Being the first always comes with the pressure to make history and make it memorable. In the months leading up to Lamar’s performance, many asked how one lone rap star would advance the genre and entertain the masses simultaneously on the world’s biggest stage. Was it possible?

Lamar answered the call with a Super Bowl set touted as “The Great American Game” — taking place during the actual great American rematch between the Philadelphia Eagles and the Kansas City Chiefs — by Uncle Sam himself (portrayed by Samuel L. Jackson).

From the moment Jackson introduced the rapper’s long-awaited performance, viewers knew something unprecedented would transpire on the field. And it did. Several things did, actually.

Over 13 and a half minutes, Lamar ditched the tradition of performing his greatest hits and instead opted for storytelling by way of his latest album, “GNX” — plus a few hits from his album “Damn” (“Humble” and “DNA”), a “Black Panther” soundtrack standout (“All the Stars” featuring SZA) and another blistering Drake-aimed diss track (“Euphoria”).

“GNX” was surprise-released mere months before Lamar took his place on the 50-yard line, so the stunning decision to perform five of its 12 tracks (out of an 11-song setlist) perplexed viewers who had anticipated more nostalgic smashes. But it made sense if you paid attention to the Compton emcee’s most recent statements.

“It’s very hard for me to live in the past,” Lamar explained in his Apple Music pre-Super Bowl interview. “I respect the past wholeheartedly. But being in the now and being locked into how I feel and the energy I have now, that’s the LA energy for me. That’s something that I want to carry over to New Orleans and for the world to see.”

Lamar kept his word. On Sunday, his “now” looked like capturing a snapshot of the current crumbling America that’s eliminating DEI policies, cracking down on immigration and targeting the rights of marginalized communities. That divided nation was one of the many symbols in Lamar’s Americana-themed performance, with captivating imagery by design — red, white and blue colors for the dancers and himself, overly patriotic garments for Jackson that mirrored a 1917 World War I propaganda poster, Lamar performing amid a Black-bodied American flag.

The subverted iconography proves that heavier topics were on Lamar’s mind. That felt more urgent and timely than celebrating his hit songs of yesteryear (if that’s what you’re looking for, go stream “The Pop Out: Ken & Friends” again). So, even while keeping with the jovial party atmosphere summoned by records like “Squabble Up,” Lamar made space for hushed reflections proposed on B-sides like “Man at the Garden.”

“I’m crashin’ out right now; it ain’t safe with me. I did it with integrity, these boys try hate on me, just wait and see,” he rapped in front of a light post surrounded by his squad. “More blood be spillin’, it’s just paint to me. Dangerously, ain’t no change in me, ain’t no shaming me. Flip a coin, you want the dangerous me or the famous me?”

Both seemed to make an appearance on Sunday: “I want to perform their favorite song, but you know they love to sue,” Lamar boldly jabbed as a brief snippet of “Not Like Us” played, a double-whammy reference to Drake and his recent defamation lawsuit against Universal Music Group — the rapper’s longtime label he’s accused of excessively promoting Lamar’s “defamatory” song.

Making statements is in Lamar’s artistic nature. His career has thrived on it since the days of “Section.80.” So, for a man who has interrogated the conditions of being Black in America throughout his years — the coming-of-age tale of a Black Compton youth on “good kid, m.A.A.d city,” the tackling of race, identity and oppression on “To Pimp a Butterly,” a chain-gang led by him illustrating the corrupt American criminal justice system at the 2016 Grammys — it’s no surprise that Lamar chose to depict culture over pure merriment Sunday night. What else would you expect from a Pulitzer Prize winner who declared, “I wanna represent for us” on “The Heart Part 5?”

“Twenty years in, still got that pen dedicated to bare hard truth,” Lamar noted in his opening Super Bowl number.

Still, Lamar’s political gestures rang a bit hollow when you consider the vessel for his performance art. The NFL, a for-profit corporation that thrives on consumerism and that condemned kneeling protests, took note of the rap icon’s impact last year and deliberately used his star power to cash in on increased viewership and ad revenue for its annual championship. And Lamar let it; the price of admission to the league’s biggest stage.

That’s a fair critique. 

There was similar commentary when Beyoncé rolled out her country offering “Cowboy Carter” last year, toting the American flag on the album’s covers to assert the history of Black cowboy culture.

These symbolic reminders of Black Americans’ contributions are powerful and sometimes compelling. However, they will always be flawed when explored within or around the confines of a racist and capitalist system — especially alongside an actual act of resistance, like the performer who stormed the Super Bowl field wielding a Sudanese-Palestinian flag with “Sudan” and “Gaza” written on it.

On the flip side, there’s still a revolutionary message at the heart of Lamar’s Super Bowl show. Or at least that’s what his dazzling theatrics set out to prove. 

Much like the corporation he made a deal with, Lamar manipulated his performance to push his agenda, albeit not perfectly. Though with Sunday’s access, the rapper monopolized the chance to “make a difference from inside the system” and use a global platform to his advantage. To what end? That remained largely unknown until Lamar uttered a damning phrase at the top of his set.

“The revolution ’bout to be televised,” the 37-year-old warned, repurposing the late Gil Scott-Heron’s 1971 poem, “The Revolution Will Not Be Televised.” 

“You picked the right time but the wrong guy,” Lamar added tauntingly. 

According to Wired, the goal of Lamar’s performance was to “portray [his] life as a video game. “I think the [video game theme] was symbolic, his way to reach young people,” show art director Shelley Rodgers explained to the publication. “A lot of it is showing his journey, traveling through the American dream.”

Lamar’s vision of that was quite complex.

Beginning with a Playstation controller-inspired motif, Lamar crafted a live show on Sunday that became more than just another finisher move to stomp on Drake’s figurative grave again. From performing rhymes about “sit[ting] down and be[ing] humble” between a split American flag to rapping about having “loyalty” and “royalty inside my DNA” in front of that same symbol of nationalism, to “walk[ing] your enemy down with a poker face” in front of millions of viewers, the political metaphors were aplenty with President Donald Trump in attendance. 

The “too loud, too reckless, too ghetto” spectacle was Lamar’s way of showing a chaotic American reality in all its facets, much to the chagrin of a disapproving Uncle Sam.

“Mr. Lamar, do you know how to play the game?” Jackson, in character, spewed angrily at the rapper to get him to fall in line. But to know Lamar is to know he does anything but.

Hence why he got away with doing the unthinkable onstage: performing his entire first verse of “Not Like Us” — censored for sensitive language, but still full of pedophile allegations aimed at Drake, a memed name-drop and that iconic “A minorrrrrrr” zinger (and who can forget that loaded cameo from a crip-walking Serena Williams).

It’s a moment many didn’t think we’d actually see, especially after Drake’s legal action against the song and Lamar’s earlier jeer — and definitely not to such a degree. But not even rap litigation could dissuade Lamar.

“It’s a cultural divide … this is bigger than the music,” he rapped. “They tried to rig the game, but you can’t fake influence.” 

Lamar’s mic-drop moment could’ve ended there, but he finished his performance with a celebratory wink to his hometown sound and the producer partially responsible for its nationwide embrace. 

“Mustaaaaaard,” Lamar introduced the “GNX” heater “TV Off” cozied up next to the man himself. He closed out by repeatedly instructing viewers to turn their televisions off before cameras abruptly cut to a lit-up sign that read, “Game over.”

That final sly remark could’ve been a nod back to Scott-Heron’s call to action and Lamar’s original intent to televise the revolution he spoke of. It could’ve also been another subtle blow to Drake that, despite his best efforts, Lamar’s crown isn’t up for the taking: “It’s important I deserve it all because it’s mine. Why you think you deserve the greatest of all time?” 

That’s the interesting thing about art.  

We’d be here all day if we broke down every last detail of Lamar’s Super Bowl extravaganza. There are far more hidden messages the chronically online will dissect and obsess over for the next few days and possibly weeks leading up to Lamar’s North American “Grand National” stadium tour with SZA, which kicks off in April.

“I think this is going to be one of those performances where people are going to be digging up Easter eggs for years to come,” Apple Music’s Nadeska Alexis predicted to Lamar ahead of the Super Bowl.

Fevered social media discourse is already backing up that claim. 

As with any musical event from Lamar, his endgame is, at the very least, to get his audience to pause and ponder and, at most, consider another perspective. From what viewers witnessed on Sunday, that seems to be a small part of the rapper’s vision for the American Dream.

“I’ve always been very open about storytelling through all my catalog and my history of music,” Lamar noted in his Apple Music interview. “I’ve always had a passion about bringing that on whatever stage I am on … I like to always carry on that sense of making people listen but also see and think a little.”

Not many other hip-hop acts have possessed that devotion and reverence for the culture and used their platform to push it to another level like Lamar. So when they ask who attempted that on the world’s biggest stage, of all places, “Tell ’em Kendrick did it.” 

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