“Tryna strike a chord and it’s probably A minorrrrrrr.”
These were the lyrics that rang across the country.
This was the universal topic of every Super Bowl party and pre-game — whether or not Kendrick Lamar, the Super Bowl LIX headliner, was going to perform his diss track against international rap star Drake, “Not Like Us.” The song rocked the pop culture scene for months, and this past week, became the first diss track to ever win a Grammy.
“Not Like Us” bolstered Kendrick’s current role in popular hip-hop culture. In light of the defamation suit, Drake has been rendered the whiny baby that can’t face the music in the eyes of the public.
Kendrick, armed with that knowledge, gave no f**ks — naturally, he played the song. The performance was near the end of the set, effectively building anticipation from the crowd and viewers at home. He played the intro of the song a couple of times, and even claimed he wasn’t going to play it, stating, “I want to play their favorite song, but you know they like to sue.”
The stage was configured as a video game controller, and at the set’s close, the stands read in white lights “Game Over.”
And boy oh boy, did Kendrick win.
Fully entranced, I watched Kendrick perform “Not Like Us.” Dude was seriously having a blast; Kendrick ascended beyond mere criticism in his lyricism.
Kendrick rapped the infamous lines, “Say, Drake I like ‘em young,” and looked directly into the camera while patting an imaginary child. “Not Like Us” alleges that Drake is a pedophile among other nefarious things, suggesting that the performance of the song was a premeditated decision.
As such, compromises were made to make the song more palatable — something Black artists have had to do historically to please audiences. Kendrick replaced the word “pedophile” with a pre-recorded scream, and the camera panned away from him as he continued to rap.
This was the true genius of Kendrick’s performance — unifying the creative narrative of the performance with the ongoing metanarrative. He directly challenged the controversy of whether he should perform a song that is tied up in a defamation lawsuit. His set was a commentary on a larger issue: whether a Black performer could perform a set at the Super Bowl on live television that may be pegged as “too vulgar” or obscene by viewers.
Kendrick drew attention to the point of always having to mitigate his verbiage, lyrics and persona via his personal bard, Samuel L. Jackson, who was decked out as the ultimate patriotic figure: Uncle Sam. Jackson was a bit of a provocateur throughout the set, stoking the flames.
A skilled orator of the rap tradition, Kendrick delivers tongue-twisting double entendres and praises rhyme scheme, treating his career and reputation with an air of traditional austerity. He handled his beef with Drake as a necessary task to preserve his role as a respected and admired rap legend, and he clearly has not wavered on this stance.
His performance of “Not Like Us” on the Super Bowl stage, at the Caesars Dome in New Orleans, confirmed this: it’s all business — but who said you couldn’t mix business with pleasure?
Kendrick was fitted up in staples of Americana, most notably his perfectly silhouetted bell-bottom jeans.
Following SZA’s appearance, Jackson stated “That’s what America wants — nice, calm. You’re almost there — don’t mess this up…”
In response, Kendrick began playing “Not Like Us,” in direct rebellion to the ideological push for Black artists to make their art digestible to crowds.
Holistically, the set was centered around “Not Like Us,” and as a polish to the crown jewel, the rest of Kendrick’s performance was relatively ordinary. His bigger hits failed to make it on stage — no “Bitch, Don’t Kill My Vibe,” or “Alright.” He pulled from a more contemporary repertoire from his recent LP, “GNX.”
Following “Squabble Up,” Jackson appeared and posited the inflammatory inquiry to Kendrick: “Too loud, too reckless, too ghetto — Mr. Lamar, do you really know how to play the game?”
This worked to both taunt Kendrick and satirize the performance and the American cultural motif as a whole. Kendrick then began performing “HUMBLE.,” and his dance entourage wearing red, white and blue tracksuits assumed the formation of the American flag.
At the set’s inception, Kendrick decreed, “The revolution ‘bout to be televised – you picked the right time, but the wrong guy.” On one of the world’s biggest stages, Kendrick addressed contemporary struggles, but most importantly — certainly most entertainingly — he made sure to air out his personal beef. To that, I say, well done Mr. Lamar, I would too.
