Delivering the Grammy-winning hit “Not Like Us” and surprise collabs with SZA and DJ Mustard, rapper Kendrick Lamar’s Super Bowl Halftime headlining act was a home run. For over 13 minutes, the Compton native brought the house down with a medley of his greatest hits.
The set began with an introduction by “Avengers” actor Samuel L. Jackson, dressed up as Uncle Sam. Clad in a blue jersey and flared denim, KDot kicked off with a rendition of unreleased track “Bodies”. He then followed it up with ten more tracks including “Humble”, “Euphoria”, “DNA”, “Squabble Up”, “Luther” and “All The Stars” featuring SZA before launching into the hotly anticipated “Not Like Us”, already modified to be general-audience friendly. The set concluded with the energetic anthem “TV Off” from Kendrick’s latest album, featuring his producer Mustard.
Without a doubt, the highlight of the performance is “Not Like Us”, a diss track Kendrick released during his beef with Canadian rapper Drake last summer. The rapper prefaced the song by cheekily teasing: “I wanna perform their favorite song, but you know they love to sue” – alluding to Drake suing his record label Universal Music over the song’s insinuation that Drake “likes” minors. Midway through the performance, retired tennis player Serena Williams appears briefly doing some crip walking. This cameo has a layered history: Serena once dated Drake and it reportedly didn’t end well between them.
On the game side, Super Bowl 2025 saw the Philadelphia Eagles take down Kansas City Chiefs 40-22, stopping the latter from scoring a historic three-year winning streak. The Sunday night final was well attended, with A-listers like Bradley Cooper, Anne Hathaway, Paul Rudd, LeBron James, Kevin Hart, Taylor Swift, and many others packing the Caesars Superdome in New Orleans, Louisiana.