Sunday, February 9th, was the big game: Super Bowl LIX. Maybe you watched to see if the Kansas City Chiefs were going to get their three-peat, maybe you watched for the Philadelphia Eagles payback on the Chiefs for the last time they confronted each other in Super Bowl LVII, back in 2023. Maybe you didn’t watch it at all. Over a million people watched it for one thing: Kendrick Lamar’s halftime performance.
Just a week before the Super Bowl, he won a total of five Grammys for his song “Not Like Us.” The only nominations he lost were to himself in his collaborative song with Metro Boomin and Future, titled “Like That.” The rapper now has a total of 22 Grammy awards. He’s the third rapper to ever pass a feat of 20 Grammys, joining Jay-Z and Kanye West. This adds to his long list of highly prestigious awards, including being the only rapper to win a Pulitzer Prize.
Lamar announced this halftime show September 8th, 2024, through a video that was uploaded online. On January 23rd, he announced SZA as a guest appearance through another video. This performance was incredibly hyped up by Kendrick Lamar’s fans, especially with his rise to superstardom after topping charts for weeks with the release of his album GNX.
When the game clock hit halftime, the score was Eagles 24-0 Chiefs. The performance came in blazing. The halftime show started off with Uncle Sam, played by Samuel L. Jackson, introducing us to “the Great American Game.” The camera then showed a spotlight shining on Lamar, sitting on the hood of his black 1987 Buick GNX, before zooming out to show people in red, white, and blue outfits pouring out of the car. He first performed a short teaser of an unreleased song, before he stopped, stood on the hood of the car and said, “The revolution is about to be televised, you picked the right time but the wrong guy.” This referenced the 1971 poem by Gil Scott-Heron, titled “The Revolution Will Not Be Televised.” This poem was used as a Black liberation song during the Black power movement from the mid 1960s to 1980s. This came right before he began one of his most streamed songs called “squabble up,” off of his most recent album. The camera panned back to Uncle Sam as he responded by saying that the song is “too reckless, too ghetto,” so Lamar switched it up.
When the camera found Kendrick again, he’s surrounded by backup dancers aligned to look like the American flag. This could be interpreted to mean that America was built off of the backs of African-Americans, due to the amount of unpaid labor from slaves during the height of the development of America as a new country. The track to his most streamed song then begins, “HUMBLE.” This song immediately transferred to another smash hit off of the same album, “DNA.” Then we panned out into the crowd, finding a message spelled out with lights that reads, “WARNING WRONG WAY,” most likely in reference to him disobeying Uncle Sam by starting to play his track titled “euphoria.”

He played a short clip of another recent song, “man at the garden,” before Uncle Sam returned, mad at Kendrick’s disobedience, and told the scorekeeper to “deduct one life.” Now, we are shown four shapes on the field, an X, a circle, a square, and a triangle, continuing to tie into the game theme; many noticed these are the same shapes as found on the buttons of a PlayStation controller. This immediately went into his next song, “peekaboo,” also from GNX. Then he teased his song, “Not Like Us” by saying to some of the backup dancers “I wanna play they favorite song, but you know they love to sue.” This is in reference to Drake’s lawsuit against Universal Music Group for defamation in the song, where he also said the streams of the song were inflated, and that UMG used their resources to harmfully affect his image. For the time being, he decided not to, and instead brought out SZA to perform their collaborative track named “luther.” Here it’s revealed that SZA was in an all red outfit, head to toe. Some are saying this could represent Lamar’s strive for peace between the gangs in California, with Kendrick’s outfit being majority blue and the two playing songs representing love. This then transitioned to their most popular song together, “All The Stars,” which was made for the Black Panther movie, released in 2018. Some have noted SZA’s change in notes compared to the original recorded versions, saying her singing was more melodical. She hit higher notes and elongated different lines, showing off impressive vocal skills and possibly displaying improvement in her own singing since the recorded version.
Uncle Sam then said the calm tracks are “what America wants,” and tells Kendrick Lamar not to mess it up, as he says that we could hear the beginning of the backing track to “Not Like Us” play. Kendrick then says a small line many have caught on to: “Forty acres and a mule, this is bigger than the music.” Not only did searches for this small line of “Forty acres and a mule” skyrocket after the end of the show, it also holds deep meaning. It refers to a part of Special Field Orders, No. 15, from 1865, when General William T. Sherman said some of the African-American families freed in the civil war should be given the land of the south, no bigger than forty acres, and they should be allowed to borrow a mule to help the agrarian growth of the land. Although this was attempted, it was stopped by President Andrew Johnson, and much of the land given to these families was given back to the previous white owners.
Now, he finally performed the widely anticipated song, “Not Like Us.” We then are shown a familiar face, Serena Williams, dancing to this song. She’s not only Drake’s ex, the two dated on and off from 2011 to 2015, but this cameo also offers a redemption for Serena being rebuked for doing the same dance after she won the gold medal in the 2012 London Olympics. He transitioned to another recently popular song, “tv off,” even bringing out the DJ he rose to fame, Mustard. At the end of the song, you can hear static and once again see something spelt out in the crowd: “GAME OVER.”
This halftime show had a lot of content, and a lot of hidden meaning, but even at face value, it was a great performance. Of course, as an avid Kendrick Lamar fan I very much enjoyed it. I also enjoyed SZA’s vocals, and the track list. I expected him to play a lot more of his older songs, and it was honestly a little surprising he didn’t. There were a whole three albums that he didn’t even touch. I also expected at least another guest performance, but there’s only so much you can fit into the allowed time. Overall, I liked the theme and I hope to see more storyline driven performances from him in the near future. Next year, Super Bowl LX will be in Santa Clara, California, so let’s see who secures the show next year, and hopefully it’s a good one.