Lamar gave us "Not Like Us," but also a much-needed dose of something else.
He did it. The world was waiting with bated breath to see if Kendrick Lamar -- who has been embroiled in a months-long beef with rapper Drake -- would perform "Not Like Us" during the Super Bowl LIX halftime show. Why wouldn't he perform the five-time Grammy-winning blockbuster hit of his career on the country's biggest televised stage? Well, because the Drake-targeted banger essentially accuses the Canadian rapper of being a pedophile, an attack so vicious that it led to Drake filing a defamation suit against Universal Music Group -- the label that has licensing agreements with both Drake and Lamar -- last month.
While some legal analysts doubted that Lamar would perform the contentious song, and fans hoped that he would, the "Humble" rapper proved he was anything but by taunting audiences on the matter on Sunday night. Instead of verbally burning a Drake effigy for 12 minutes straight, Lamar decided to do what he does best: use his stadium-sized platform to deliver a political message when America needs it most. During Black History Month, with Donald Trump of all people in the audience, Lamar called out the streak of anti-Blackness that pervades this country's past and present. All while, yes, viewers were on the edge of their seats waiting to hear the infamous lyric "certified lover boy, certified pedophile."
With actor Samuel L. Jackson acting as "Uncle Sam," Lamar performed some of the hits from his most recent album GNX -- "gnx"; "Squabble Up" -- alongside background dancers dressed in red, white, and blue. Between song transitions, he rattled off phrases like the "revolution [is] about to be televised," and protested racism through defiance, continuing on as Jackson's "Uncle Sam" interrupted his -- in Jackson's character's words -- "too ghetto" display. Instead of backing down, Lamar had his background dancers get into a color-coordinated formation that created an American flag as he launched into his hits "Humble" and "DNA."
But Lamar was well aware of what we all really wanted to see, an elephant in the room that he spoke to directly with a callout of Drake during his first tease of "Not Like Us": "I wanna perform they favorite song but you know they love to sue." He then pivoted, introducing his frequent collaborator SZA to perform the more melodic song "All the Stars." It wasn't until Uncle Sam's next retort -- "That's what America wants: nice, calm" -- that Lamar, characteristically defiant, turned it all the way up.
Because you know what America actually wants? Feet on necks! A takedown so absolute, it's awe-inspiring! Pure hateration and holleration in this dancery! America wants rap, hip-hop, and alllllll the grade-A beef. Kendrick asserted that the political message he's trying to imbue in his performance is bigger than Drake's hurt feelings -- stating, "40 acres and a mule, this is bigger than the music" -- before launching into, at long last, his actual performance of "Not Like Us." At the end of the day, Lamar said Drake's name and the famous "A minor" line, but refrained from saying the word "pedophile" at the most-watched event on TV.
I know what you may be thinking: If this is such a "political" performance, why didn't Kendrick perform his most political song "Alright" -- the song that soundtracked the Black Lives Matter protests and has become synonymous with the contemporary pro-Black movement -- in front of Trump, at a time when the president and his government of cronies have turned all things diversity-, equity-, and race-related into the ultimate bogeymen?
Lamar is canny: He knows that it's a balancing act to be able to chide America's anti-Blackness and "respectability" politics, and what's needed on the opposite end of the scale is a gold bar of drama. That's what he accomplished with his performance, which was full of attention-drawing slights at Drake. He brought out tennis legend Serena Williams, Drake's rumored ex who inspired a different beef between Drake and rapper Common, to C-walk during the big song, and he wore a diamond lowercase "a" chain most likely to represent the lyric "A minor" (accompanied by some flagbearers running across the field with flags depicting the same lowercase "a" being held by children). As if that weren't enough, some fans also believe that the other tunes chosen for Lamar's setlist are meant to be sneak Drake disses.
Lamar gave us the medicine with the cake, expecting us to eat it all -- and America housed it. Because what he knows is that American culture is Black culture, and Black culture is hip-hop culture, and beef is not being afraid of paper tigers -- it's laying it all out on the playing field.