There is an argument to be made that Kendrick Lamar is the greatest to ever touch the rap game. After a massive feud with Drake, following a series of diss tracks against each other, Lamar came out victorious with a hit song, “Not Like Us”. It was revealed on Sep 9, 2024 that Lamar was to perform at the halftime show of the NFL superbowl. This caused chaos across the pop culture sphere as Lamar was truly running a victory lap on Drake with the icing on the cake of performing at the superbowl.
Then a few months later, Lamar dropped a new album, GNX, which furthered the great year for Lamar as the album was generally liked by critics and the audience, with its tracks consistently ranking highly on the Billboard Hot 100. With the halftime show then a week away, Lamar secured five grammys all on his diss track, “Not Like Us.”
Lamar is known for his deep political and social commentary among his lyrics and with the given political climate of the United States, the halftime show became not only just a coup de grace to Drake, but a political stance as well. In attendance was recently inaugurated Donald Trump along with a host of other political figures, mostly conservatives which Lamar tends to disagree with in his music.
To start off the show, the camera pans the stage which looks like a game board. Actor Samuel L. Jackson embodies the role of Uncle Sam and introduces the audience to the game that is to be played, “This is the Great American Game.” This transitions into a teaser for Lamar’s next song, then followed by hit song “Squabble Up.” This prompts Uncle Sam to comment on the music, saying, “too loud, too reckless, too ghetto. Mr. Lamar, do you really know how to play the game?” Lamar's answer to this question was another banger, “HUMBLE,” He continued using works from the same album “DAMN.” as he led into, “DNA.” The first direct song linked to the Drake feud, “Euphoria,” was played after. From there, Lamar plays two songs from “GNX;” “Man at the Garden” and “Peekaboo.”
After “Peekaboo,” Lamar addresses the tension in the crowd. He asked some dancers if he should play “Not Like Us,” they warned him not to, so Lamar switched to a different song featuring a multiple time collaborator, SZA. They perform “Luther” and “All The Stars.” Uncle Sam comes back in and applauses Lamar, “That’s what I am talking about! That's what America wants, nice and calm.”
Finally, Lamar talks to the performers next to him and says, “I want to play their favorite song but you know they like to sue,” addressing those who threatened to sue him if he performed “Not Like Us,” but eventually goes ahead to sing it anyway. Drake threatened to sue Lamar’s record label for the success and supposed defamation of Drake on the song, but Lamar refused to stay quiet. The final song is “tv off” and it's predicting Drake’s reaction to the halftime show.
One of the more memorable moments of the night was when Lamar got to potentially one of the most iconic lines to ever come out of art in all of recorded history, “tryna strike a chord and it's probably a minor,” where the whole stadium sang along.
“Too loud, too reckless, too ghetto,” is an important piece in this plot. According to Lamar, this is how America, in other words Uncle Sam, sees rap, to fit that description. The only songs that Uncle Sam approved of were “Luther” and “All The Stars.” A noticeable difference between those two and the others Lamar performed is the more upbeat sound to the songs. What this could be is pointing out is America likes happy things only.
Lamar’s songs and albums as a whole tend to have a message. Whether that be about politics, mental health, success, race in America, there's a lot, they are all very direct and don’t romanticize anything. “Good kid, m.A.A.d city” is Lamar’s second studio album, and covers the struggles of Lamar growing up in Compton. The story within the album is rough and gritty. With lots of moments that are shocking and carry more losses than wins, the story however, ends in good faith with Lamar finding a way out of the struggle through his passion for music.
Uncle Sam does not like this since it pokes holes in the idea of America being a place of happiness and freedom. Since Lamar uses his music as a teaching advice, Uncle Sam fears the perception of America as not a picture perfect place. Using Lamar’s own metaphor on caterpillars and butterflies, “The caterpillar begins to notice ways to survive One thing it noticed is how much the world shuns him But praises the butterfly.” America likes stories of success and not struggle, for in its eyes, the latter never happens.
