Breaking Down Kendrick Lamar’s Super Bowl LIX Halftime Performance

I’m not sure where Kendrick Lamar ranks in the annals of Super Bowl halftime performances. That said, it was far from the worst performance of all time, as some people — who’ve obviously forgotten about The Weeknd and The Black Eyed Peas — have claimed. Still, it was decidedly not your typical halftime show; it felt far more dense and layered, and less concerned with mere entertainment spectacle.

Andrew R. Chow weighs in on Lamar’s song selections and the various references strewn throughout his performance.

These relatively obscure and deeply L.A.-indebted songs risked alienating perhaps more than just a small portion of his audience. To bridge the gap, Lamar leaned heavily on a phalanx of over 80 dancers, who appeared in various formations over the performance’s 13 minutes. Donned in solid reds, whites, and blues, they at various points recalled an American flag, Compton gang members, HBCU step teams, the doppelgängers in Us. They sprawled into mosh pits, rotated in kinetic circles, and marched like soldiers striding into war and then protesters at a rally, their energy conveying the joy and messiness of America’s body politic.

According to Kyndall Cunningham, Lamar was less concerned with making political statements than he was with interrogating his own place in American culture. And of course, taking down Drake… again.

He skipped the sort of anti-establishment messaging that got him lambasted by Fox News anchors in the past. Instead, he opted mostly for songs off of GNX, which he’ll tour around the country in April, including “squabble up,” “peekaboo,” “tv off,” and “luther,” featuring his future tourmate SZA. The pair also performed their 2018 collaboration “All the Stars” from the Black Panther soundtrack. Inevitably, he performed both of his most popular diss tracks from last summer, “euphoria” and, after much teasing, “Not Like Us.” The crowd sang along as he came to the song’s most famous and quotable line — “tryna strike a chord and it’s probably A minorrrr.” Lamar also sported a very visible lower-cased “a” necklace. And Serena Williams, the subject of many a Drake lyric, danced on the field during the performance. In short, the evening’s biggest act of daring was aimed at Drake’s lawyers, not some larger injustice.

For Mark Beaumont, however, Lamar’s performance — i.e., “the most significant mass-televised rap performance of all time” — was deeply political.

That troupes of Black dancers in red, white and blue spew out of Lamar’s GNX like a cool retro clown car and form the US flag for G-funk opener “Squabble Up” is the most forthright finger in Trump’s face from a proud and unbroken Black America. But that the show then throws these citizens into a series of America-coloured Squid Game games in light-up arenas of cubes and crosses — to the brutal yet haunting “DNA”, a track about the multitudes contained within Lamar and his heritage — is a metaphor for the exploitation and manipulation to come, which will likely have bounced straight off Trump’s impervious skull.

Over on Facebook, Camara Williams delves into the significance of Lamar’s iconography, especially for Black males.

He was reclaiming the idea of Black male identity on a white stage. He did that tenfold. In the face of Uncle Sam, in the face of the sitting President who attempted to use Black men to divide our race — in which he was mildly successful in that. Kendrick addressed this with only subtle gesture of someone who thinks before he speaks.

Sidney Madden notes how Lamar’s performance played into his cultural persona.

For America’s annual night of God, country and football, Lamar played into fears that he’s too dangerous for the country’s biggest stage with sinister pleasure, making it clear that he would not soften his contempt or his approach for the mass audience.

Actor Samuel L. Jackson opened the show dressed as a satirical Uncle Sam, who would spend the entire set leering at Lamar’s every move, warning not to do anything “too loud, too reckless, too ghetto.”

In response, Lamar went scorched-earth on the rival that he spent the last year burying and positioned himself as a prophet of America’s messy reality.

Finally, Jason Lipshutz highlights several aspects of Lamar’s performance that you didn’t see on TV, including the rapper’s own athleticism.

Perhaps the most impressive physical feat that Lamar performed during the halftime show came during “DNA,” when he sprinted down the center of the field to keep up with the camera — all while breathlessly rapping the Damn. smash. On the telecast, Lamar didn’t appear to be running too fast, but the way he hustled down the field without sacrificing his focus was worthy of Saquon Barkley.

Watch Lamar’s entire halftime performance below. I suspect people will be discussing and analyzing it for a long time to come, more so than Katy Perry or Maroon 5, anyway.