The Super Bowl is technically about the football match between two teams. But what most non-sports fans wanted to see was Kendrick Lamar’s Super Bowl half-time show.
For Super Bowl LIX, the football match between the Philadelphia Eagles and Kansas City Chiefs ended with the Eagles beating the Chiefs by 40-22. However, that’s not what people are talking about.
People are still stuck on Kendrick Lamar’s performance during the halftime show, which featured a guest appearance from SZA and Serena Williams. Everyone attuned to the music industry knew Lamar would sign “Not Like Us”, a song which won him multiple Grammys.
The song, the performance, and even the guest—This whole halftime was a dig at Drake, who reportedly had a brief affair with Serena Williams. But this is not all that people saw. What people saw was only color and no white performer in Lamar’s Troop.
In the last few years, all the super bowl performances have been Black or artists of color though the entourage looked like America with dancers from all ethnicities. Kendrick Lamar, however, pushed the envelope a little too far without any white performer. This looked too much like reverse racism. These details irked the internet and people were quick to show their annoyance on X.
Calling out Kendrick Lamar and saying DEI would only take you so far, people also mentioned that had the tables been turned and a white performer had only white dancers, the retaliation and criticism would have been immense. They are not wrong though. This looked like a deliberate attempt to pass on some message which no one was taking.
Youd think #Superbowl was an African event! Kendrick Lamar has 100s of dancers,ALL of em black! Havent seen 1 white face! Hes even got Serena Williams dancing & S L Jackson comparing! Can u imagine the uproar if a white artist only had white dancers? WTF is happening 2 the USA?! pic.twitter.com/TZ0FfqnNpg
— The Woman (@TheWomanHolmes) February 10, 2025
Netizens also called this the most boring halftime show. After fantastic shows by J.Lo & Shakira, Rihanna and Usher, Lamar failed to get the crowd on its feet. He was called out for focusing too much on Drake and not planning his show properly.
Another flub of the evening was a shirt that Lamar wore. At the end of the performance, when the camera panned on to Kendric Lamar, his shirt said- “KEEP THEM AWAY FROM ME”. Ironically, no one really knows what it meant. This also irritated people. “ What are you even saying?” asked one of the X users.
Was this another dig at Drake or was Lamar trying to say something to the government on the lie of the recently defunct DEI program? No one knows at this point.
I’m not going to do a deep dive on this—just offering a different perspective on Kendrick Lamar’s Super Bowl performance.
The main sentiment I’ve seen is: boring, not my type of music, could have done better.
I get it.
I think Kendrick preemptively did as well; he told you…
— Poet (@akaPoet) February 10, 2025
Everyone knows that Lamar has probably smiled enough at his feud with Drake. Lamar performed a similar set during his Juneteenth show. He won Grammys, talked about the songs, and now performs at the Super Bowl. Maybe it’s time to let go of this.
Drake and him have been on for the last few months. As much as everyone enjoys the songs and feud, it’s getting old now. Kendrick Lamar called Drake a “paedophile”. The Canadian rapper accused Universal Music Group of promoting the “false and malicious narrative” that he is a paedophile in a federal defamation case that was filed earlier this month.
