Pulitzer prize winning rapper Kendrick Lamar took the half time spotlight at Super Bowl LIX. Over the years this stage has seen various stars catching the eyes of the audience. This includes Prince’s 2007 Purple Rain performance as well as Rihanna announcing her pregnancy. What the stage has always lacked is some serious artistry, which is where Kendrick Lamar did justice.
The show began with an announcement by none other than Samuel L. Jackson dressed up as Uncle Sam. The audience saw Lamar on top of a 1987 Buick Grand National GNX, the car on which the rapper named his first album. Lamar started the set with “Squabble Up” and “Humble” as the dancers appeared on stage dressed in red, white and blue tracksuits, which could mean a moment of unity between Compton’s two rival gangs.
As Samuel L. Jackson yelled “too loud, too reckless, too ghetto” (perhaps a reference to how this set might be reviewed in red states), Lamar carried on with the performance. An interplay of dance, Samuel Jackson’s spoken word movements and Lamar’s album tracks created some serious drama, though the audience still kept guessing what exactly this might be about.
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Midway through the set Lamar talked about his diss track “Not Like Us”, with four female dancers on stage. “I want to perform their favorite song, but you know they love to sue,” Lamar referred to Drake’s ongoing defamation lawsuit against the record label with whom they both work: Universal Music. But instead of going into it Lamar performed a couple of melodic numbers with SZA: “Luther” and “All the Stars”. Jackson seemed to want more of just this. “That’s what America wants – nice and calm,” he shouted.
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And this is the point where things went in the complete opposite direction. Lamar finally dropped “Not Like Us”, mesmerizing the audience. Although he did tone it down a little this time, self-censoring the word “pedophile”. The final surprise for the night was Drake’s ex-girlfriend Serena William‘s appearance, crip-walking by a lamp post.
But this was not the end to the list of surprising events during the performance. As Lamar ended his set with his hit single “TV off”, a man dressed in black with a Palestinian flag appeared from nowhere on the stage. He kept running around the set, till he was handcuffed and escorted off the field by officers. Was this a part of Lamar’s performance or was this a protestor who managed to get in? Guess we’ll never know!
Click here to watch the performance!
