How Kendrick Lamar Went Pop in His Own Way

Kendrick Lamar poses for photos during the Super Bowl LIX Pregame + Apple Music Halftime Show press conference held at the New Orleans Ernest N. Morial Convention Center in New Orleans, La on February 6, 2025. Credit - PA Wire—Getty Images

When Kendrick Lamar accepted the Grammy Award for Song of the Year for his chart-topping hit “Not Like Us,” he said, “This is what it’s about, man. Because at the end of the day, nothing is more powerful than rap music. We are the culture. It’s gonna always stay here and live forever.”

The 67th Annual Grammy Awards was a historic night for the L.A. rapper. “Not Like Us” became the most decorated song in the history of the Recording Academy, winning all five of its nominations. Now, just a week later, Lamar is going to make history again as the first solo rap artist to perform at the Super Bowl halftime show.

This performance, where much is unknown with the exception of SZA being a special guest performer, feels a bit like a coronation ceremony for what has been an incredible year for Lamar. From unequivocally winning the back-and-forth diss-track beef against Drake last summer, to hosting The Pop Out: Ken & Friends, a congratulatory concert held on Juneteenth in Inglewood, Calif., to releasing his fifth number-one album GNX, to his sweep at the Grammys, to now headlining one of the most prestigious stages in entertainment, Lamar has not-so-secretly been dominating not only rap music but also pop culture.

Read More: A Recent Timeline of the Drake vs. Kendrick Lamar Beef

Which begs the question: Has Kendrick Lamar, finally, gone pop?

If musicians have one summit to climb in the annals of pop-culture history, it is performing the Super Bowl halftime show. From Michael Jackson and Beyoncé to Rihanna, Paul McCartney, and Prince, the Super Bowl halftime slot is genreless by nature. Often, musicians have utilized the performance as a way to make a statement—and further cement themselves in pop culture history.  This is what makes the halftime show—a gig that notoriously offers no monetary compensation towards its talent—so fascinating: The only requirement is that the artists have to be at the top of their game.

Lamar, himself, is no stranger to the halftime show. Three years ago at the Super Bowl LVI, he performed alongside two of the greatest rappers to come from the West Coast: Dr. Dre and Snoop Dogg. But what feels so monumental about this moment, in particular, is that Lamar has been able to puncture the mainstream in his own way—on his own terms.

Lamar has made a career of presenting himself as exactly who he is and where he comes from. From Section.80, his debut studio album, which put Lamar in conversation with the BreakBeat poets who preceded him, to good kid, m.A.A.d city, a modern-day exploration of a young Black man whose generation was raised by those who were failed by the Reagan administration (just like Lamar’s was left behind by the policies of Bush),  Lamar became the “voice of a generation,” particularly for L.A., like his idol Tupac Shakur. GNX, his latest offering, is his purest love letter to the City of Angels. Lamar is also well aware of his demons and has made peace with his vices. To Pimp a Butterfly and Mr. Morale & the Big Steppers are indicative of that. But for all his mysticism and introspection, the common refrain has been that Lamar has never been able to “go pop.”

Lamar, for the longest time, has been seen as the Patron Saint of the Literati. The darling of the Grammys. The winner of the Pulitzer Prize—who cannot make people get up and dance. His raps are so dense with religious mysticism and racial treatise that they’ll never dominate the charts. That he is unable to be a fully active participant in the pop domain, let alone dominate it—or so the critique goes.

Lamar has had good reasons to have stayed away from the pop spotlight. Historically, to be seen as “pop” in hip-hop is to be a sellout: Someone who does not care about the culture or rap as an art form; someone who can be swayed by the worth of a dollar or the applause of others. To “go pop” is to wield all of these traits and more—to refrain from the evolution of rap music in favor of commercial and mainstream success.

This is why Drake has always been such an interesting foil to Lamar. Drake has had a continuous grip on the culture, bridging hip-hop and pop from early on in his career. Drake is tied with Michael Jackson for the most number one songs by a male artist. Drake’s It’s All A Blur tour grossed $350.2 million, making it the highest-grossing hip-hop tour of all time. He is the fourth most streamed artist on Spotify in 2024. In 2020, British Vogue described him as “The World’s Biggest Pop Star.”

But Drake’s stronghold has also been endemic of another problem that hip-hop had been facing: as hip-hop turned 50 in 2023, the genre was in desperate need of an heir apparent. Although women and rappers in the South like Doechii, Latto, and GloRilla have made significant strides in pushing hip-hop forward (There wouldn’t be a “Not Like Us” without Meg the Stallion’s “Hiss.”), long gone are the days when hip-hop dominated the radio waves.

Drake’s beef with Lamar sparked up just as hip-hop was fighting not only for its soul but also its relevance. With “Not Like Us,” Lamar stepped in to remind listeners about the power of hip-hop, but also that he can make a hyper-regional, critically-acclaimed record that you can shake ass to, too.

That’s why the beauty of Lamar’s win is not the awards, the history-breaking records, or the performance on the world’s biggest stage, though those are certainly impressive. It’s that he was able to accomplish these feats in his own way. His regionality, style, and authenticity were the key to his success. He’s never strayed away from that. Getting to the Super Bowl halftime show is simply a way to show more people where he’s from. And who doesn’t respect someone for loving where they’re from so deeply, so unapologetically.

In 2015, the late Quincy Jones warned Lamar about the dangers of rappers not knowing the origins of hip-hop’s roots in an interview in Hypetrak magazine.  “They [rap artists of Kendrick’s generation] don’t know their history, man, and it’s very damaging out there. You get to where you’re going easy if you know what happened before you.” The hip-hop genre emerged from the Imbongi, the South African praise poets, one of the key influences of hip-hop.

Lamar, who at the time of that interview was not the global superstar he is today, was called the “future” by Jones. Jones had a way of predicting these sorts of things; for he was the one who personally selected a young rapper from Philadelphia, Will Smith, who had won the first-ever Grammy for Rap Performance in 1989, to become The Fresh Prince. Smith ushered in a new wave of bringing hip-hop to the pop culture mainstream by being himself—-just like Lamar is doing today.

“This is a true art form, so to represent it on this type of stage is like everything that I’ve worked for and everything that I believe in as far as the culture,” said Lamar of the Super Bowl LIX halftime show in a press conference hosted by Apple Music. His belief in rap music, in the innovation of hip-hop, in the culture, is what brought him here.

So perhaps it's less of a coronation, and more of a christening—for a man who has proclaimed to not be hip-hop’s savior, but in many ways, is.

Contact us at letters@time.com.