Kendrick Lamar’s Super Bowl LIX halftime show divided viewers because it refused to be a neutral greatest-hits concert. Its climax was “Not Like Us,” the defining song of Lamar’s feud with Drake, while its GNX imagery, Compton references, Serena Williams cameo, and Uncle Sam framing created a dense cultural statement that some viewers found thrilling and others found opaque.
Kendrick Lamar’s Super Bowl LIX halftime show divided viewers because it refused to behave like a neutral greatest-hits concert. On February 9, 2025, at New Orleans’ Caesars Superdome, Lamar turned the NFL’s biggest entertainment stage into a compact argument about American identity, Black and West Coast culture, Compton, and the public afterlife of his feud with Drake.
That choice produced two very different viewing experiences. Audiences familiar with Lamar’s music and the Drake conflict saw a carefully constructed cultural statement whose climax was a communal performance of “Not Like Us.” Viewers expecting a simple sequence of universally familiar stadium hits encountered a fast, symbolic medley that often assumed they already knew the context.
What happened during Kendrick Lamar’s halftime show?
Lamar was the first solo rapper to headline the Super Bowl halftime show, with SZA announced as his principal guest. The performance opened with Samuel L. Jackson in an Uncle Sam-style role, introducing the spectacle as Lamar appeared amid imagery built around a Buick GNX. The show then moved through abbreviated performances and transitions associated with Lamar’s recent work, including:
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- “Squabble Up”
- “HUMBLE.”
- “DNA.”
- “Euphoria”
- “Man at the Garden”
- “Luther,” performed with SZA
- “All the Stars,” also performed with SZA
- “Not Like Us”
This was a medley, not a set of complete performances. The televised version shortened songs and used rapid transitions, making the arrangement as important as the individual tracks. The Associated Press account of the performance highlights the GNX vehicle imagery, the move into “Squabble Up,” and the central role of “Not Like Us.”
Why “Not Like Us” changed the meaning of the show
The show’s most controversial decision was also its clearest artistic statement: Lamar made “Not Like Us” the climax. The song had been the defining public moment of his 2024 feud with Drake, and it was already a major commercial and cultural hit before the Super Bowl. Just one week earlier, it won five Grammys, including Record of the Year and Song of the Year.
At a conventional concert, performing a diss track is expected. At the Super Bowl, the decision carried a different weight. The halftime audience includes casual viewers, children, families, sports fans, and people who may have no interest in rap rivalries. Lamar nevertheless brought the feud’s most recognizable song to a nationally shared stage, using the crowd’s response to turn a personal battle into a mass spectacle.
For supporters, that was precisely the point. The audience was invited to complete parts of the refrain, making the song feel less like an isolated attack and more like a public victory lap. Lamar did not hide the track’s identity or replace it with a safer catalog choice.
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Serena Williams’ cameo added another layer
During “Not Like Us,” Serena Williams appeared and briefly performed a Crip Walk. Williams and Lamar both come from Compton, so the cameo connected the song to a shared local identity as well as to Williams’ own history with the dance.
The appearance also had a specific connection to the Drake conflict: “Not Like Us” references Williams, who previously dated Drake. That made the cameo easy to read as another taunt aimed at Lamar’s rival. But it would be too narrow to say that the cameo existed only to attack Drake. Williams later indicated that Lamar asked her to participate, and the WTA’s coverage supports the documented connection between the performer, Compton, and the dance.
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That ambiguity explains why the moment worked so powerfully for some viewers and seemed bewildering to others. One person saw a hometown reference, a dance-history reference, and a feud reference operating simultaneously. Another saw a famous tennis player briefly dancing during a song whose backstory was unclear.
The GNX imagery pointed beyond the feud
The Buick GNX at the beginning of the show helped place Lamar’s performance in a specifically Los Angeles and West Coast cultural frame. The car is closely associated with the title and imagery of Lamar’s 2024 album GNX, so its presence signaled that the show would not be built only around older crossover hits.
That choice also rewarded viewers who had followed Lamar’s recent music. The performance drew substantially from the GNX era and from songs whose meaning depends on Lamar’s artistic identity, local references, and relationship to contemporary hip-hop. A viewer encountering the show without that background could reasonably experience the opening vehicle, segmented stage, dancers, and quick song changes as disconnected images.
Listeners who want to revisit the album connected to the show’s GNX imagery can look for the Kendrick Lamar GNX vinyl. It is an album-format purchase, not an official recording of the halftime performance, and availability can change.
What did the stage symbolism mean?
The set used an Uncle Sam-style narrator, a segmented stage, street and neighborhood imagery, dancers forming visual tableaux, and recurring references to American and Los Angeles identity. Taken together, these elements made the performance feel more like a compressed audiovisual argument than a conventional pop concert.
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One free scan finds every outdated or missing driver and matches the right update for your exact hardware.Free scan · exact hardware matchOne defensible reading is that Lamar was staging the tension between Black cultural expression and American national spectacle. Uncle Sam represented the country’s official or national voice, while Lamar’s movement through street-centered and Compton-associated imagery placed a particular Black and West Coast experience inside the Super Bowl’s highly controlled corporate environment.
Other interpretations are possible. The performance did not provide a spoken explanation for every object or formation, and Lamar or the production team did not publicly establish one definitive meaning for each visual. It is therefore better to describe the imagery as inviting readings about race, respectability, regional identity, and national visibility than to claim that any single prop had one confirmed message.
The Atlantic’s review emphasizes the show’s broader statement about America, while NPR’s coverage places particular emphasis on Lamar bringing West Coast hip-hop to the national stage.
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Why casual viewers found it difficult to follow
A Super Bowl halftime show has an unusual problem: it must serve devoted fans and people who may hear the performer only a few times a year. Lamar’s performance leaned toward the first group without entirely abandoning the second.
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- The feud: “Not Like Us” was not simply a popular song; it was the centerpiece of a highly public rap battle.
- Compton: Lamar and Williams’ shared hometown gave the cameo and several visual details local meaning.
- The West Coast: The GNX imagery and Lamar’s musical vocabulary situated the performance in a specific regional tradition rather than in generic pop entertainment.
- The album cycle: Several songs and images belonged to Lamar’s recent work, which casual viewers may not have known.
- The symbolism: The show trusted viewers to interpret Uncle Sam, the stage design, the dancers, and the neighborhood imagery without explanatory narration.
That density made the performance rewarding for informed viewers but less immediately legible than a halftime show built around a long chain of universally familiar singles. The Los Angeles Times review and Pittsburgh Post-Gazette coverage both identify the Drake conflict and “Not Like Us” as central to the controversy.
Divisive did not mean unsuccessful
The disagreement around the show should not be mistaken for a commercial or cultural failure. Nielsen reported that Super Bowl LIX reached an estimated 127.7 million viewers overall. Lamar’s halftime performance averaged 133.5 million viewers across television and digital platforms, setting a halftime-viewership record at the time.
Those figures measure reach, not approval. A large audience does not demonstrate that everyone enjoyed the performance, understood every reference, or agreed with its artistic choices. The halftime figure also should not be treated as a direct comparison showing that more people preferred the show to the game; the measurement reflects the enormous audience surrounding the event and includes digital viewing.
Still, the reach mattered. Lamar’s show placed a contemporary rap feud, Compton identity, and West Coast hip-hop aesthetics in front of one of the broadest audiences in American television. His Grammy sweep immediately beforehand amplified the effect: “Not Like Us” arrived at the Super Bowl as a song already dominating the cultural conversation, not as an obscure deep cut being introduced to the public.
Independent reader supportYour contribution helps us test, update, and keep practical guides available for everyone.How to watch the performance again
For an official watch-back, Apple Music hosts Kendrick Lamar’s Super Bowl LIX halftime show, including a Spatial Audio presentation. Availability and playback features can depend on location, subscription, device, and the current status of the platform page.
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On a second viewing, it helps to watch for the structure rather than treating the show as a playlist:
- Notice how the Uncle Sam framing establishes a national stage before Lamar’s entrance.
- Track the GNX car and the movement into “Squabble Up” as a declaration of the show’s West Coast and album-era identity.
- Compare the abrupt, edited transitions with the more familiar expectation of full-length concert performances.
- Read Serena Williams’ cameo simultaneously as a Compton connection, a dance reference, and a possible extension of the Drake narrative—not as a meaning that has been definitively reduced to one explanation.
- Listen to the audience during “Not Like Us” and consider how the crowd changes the song from a recorded diss track into a live national event.
The simplest explanation for the split
Kendrick Lamar’s halftime show divided viewers because it made specificity part of the spectacle. It centered a contentious diss track, used symbols rather than explanations, drew on Compton and West Coast identity, and assumed that a large portion of the audience would recognize the references.
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That approach inevitably excluded some casual viewers. It also gave fans something a safer, more generalized halftime performance could not: the sense that Lamar had brought his own artistic world to the Super Bowl instead of adapting himself completely to it. The show’s central tension was therefore also its achievement. It was designed to be nationally visible without becoming culturally neutral.
Frequently Asked Questions
When was Kendrick Lamar’s Super Bowl halftime show?
Kendrick Lamar’s Super Bowl halftime show took place on February 9, 2025, at Caesars Superdome in New Orleans during Super Bowl LIX.
Did Kendrick Lamar perform “Not Like Us” at the Super Bowl?
Yes. “Not Like Us” was performed as the show’s climax, in an edited televised version. Serena Williams also appeared briefly during the performance and performed a Crip Walk.
Why was Kendrick Lamar’s halftime show controversial?
The show drew on several overlapping contexts: Lamar’s 2024 feud with Drake, the Compton connection shared by Lamar and Serena Williams, West Coast hip-hop, Lamar’s GNX album, and broader imagery about America and Black cultural identity.
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Bottom line: Kendrick Lamar’s Super Bowl LIX performance divided viewers because it treated halftime as a pointed cultural statement—not just a greatest-hits medley. “Not Like Us,” the Drake-feud context, Serena Williams’ Compton cameo, and the GNX-centered symbolism rewarded viewers who knew the backstory while leaving some casual fans wanting a more immediately accessible show.
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