Less than a yr after setting off a rap beef of epic proportions, Kendrick Lamar used the Apple Music Super Bowl 2025 halftime present to settle the rating by concluding with “Not Like Us,” the Drake diss monitor that was a pop hit.
“Say Drake, I hear you want ‘em young,” he said, going into the verse that led Drake to sue Lamar’s report label, Universal Music Group. The crowd erupted right into a cheer when he sang “tryna strike a chord, and it’s probably A Minor,” the identical line that garnered the most important response throughout his Grammys 2025 efficiency final Sunday. During the tune, the digicam lower away to fellow Compton native Serena Williams doing the C stroll.
On stage atop a Buick GNX, a reference to the title of Lamar’s most up-to-date album, he performed its first two songs “Wacced Out Murals” and “Squabble Up.” Before launching into “Not Like Us,” he teased it in a backwards and forwards with just a few of his dancers. “Hey ladies, I wanna play your favorite song,” he stated. “But you know they love to sue.” About midway by means of the present, he was joined by SZA, and collectively they carried out “Luther” and their Grammy-winning Black Panther collaboration, “All The Stars.”
An overtone of patriotism anchored the present, and the set was made to resemble a online game controller. Lamar was flanked by dancers carrying purple, white, and blue, and the present was narrated by Samuel L. Jackson in costume as Uncle Sam. “Mr. Lamar, do you really know how to play the game? Then tighten up!” he stated, earlier than the opening moments of “HUMBLE.” from Lamar’s 2018 album DAMN.
The inclusion of the traces dissing Drake on the nation’s largest stage is an indication that the feud isn’t going wherever. For a few decade, Lamar and Drake had been thought-about rivals for the title of “best commercially successful millennial rapper,” however their private relationship was seemingly high quality. All that modified in March 2024, when Lamar used a visitor verse on “Like That” by Future and Metro Boomin to dismiss Drake and J. Cole as his competitors. It’s not the “big three,” he stated, “it’s just big me,” a response to Drake’s monitor “First Person Shooter,” on which Cole raps, “Love when they argue the hardest MC. / Is it K-Dot? Is it Aubrey? Or me? / We the big three like we started a league. / But right now, I feel like Muhammad Ali.”
Lamar’s verse set off a tit-for-tat that continued by means of the spring, finally giving solution to disses about their private lives with more and more controversial and particular allegations. On May 4, Lamar all however ended the battle when he launched “Not Like Us,” which takes intention at Drake in a package deal so catchy it raced to the highest of the Billboard Hot 100. Last weekend, Lamar took dwelling the coveted Grammy Awards for tune and report of the yr, coming into the monitor into the historical past books.
Lamar was introduced because the halftime performer again in September, and the meat between the rapper and his rival was a spotlight because the night time drew nearer. But over the previous couple of days, politics began to intervene. On Tuesday, a spokesman for the Secret Service introduced that President Donald Trump deliberate to attend the sport. On the identical day, the NFL introduced that it deliberate to take away the slogan of its “End Racism” marketing campaign from the tip zone, changing it with “Choose Love.” Though Lamar is usually a politically outspoken artist, he prevented any extra overt political feedback in his set.