Of course he played “not like us”.
At the introduction to the main performance of Kendrick Lamara in the Super Bowl Lix Halftime Show on Sunday evening, most of the shivers focused on whether the song that was last year in his monthly battle with Drake in his monthly battle. A song that has become a lamara signature and a generation anthem. A song that won the recording and song of the year to the grammash Just a week ago. A song that seemed to recalibrate hip-hop rating perhaps permanently.
So yes, Lamar played the song. Towards the end of the ensemble, of course, building expectations with several short musical nodding at it, playing with emotions and thirsty audiences.
But from this performance it will always be remembered that it is not a music choice Lamar, or aesthetics of his choreography or the silhouettes of his clothes. He will remain his smile when he finally began to rape this song. It was a wide, permanent, almost cartoon shape. A smile of a man who has the time of his life at the expense of the enemy.
Lamar is perhaps the most turbulent of all contemporary hip-hop visibles, a wild narrator who appreciates the polemics and introspection of the tongue; It’s not exactly the lighthouse of joy. During beefHe seemed to have captivated Drake as the necessary homework.
But “not like us” was a cracked champagne cork. On the Super Bowl scene in Caesars SuperDome in New Orleans, it was indicated, pole, and then, in the end, Lamar Idiom started: “They tried to prepare the game, but you can’t make a false influence.”
And then the smile. What a smile. His subsequent performance was a jubilee and a little naughty. When he raped, “Say, Drake, I hear you like” young “, he looked hard at the camera while moving down his left hand as if he was taping on his baby’s head. He rained the line by named Drake’s collaborators and their shortcomings. Given what the song about Drake claims-Mimo other refers to him as a “certified pedophile”-the decision on its execution was almost certainly strongly illuminated. (Drake has sued the recording company For both rappers for gossip to relax and promote the track.) And concessions were made: Lamar did not call the word “pedophile”, replaced it with a pre-recorded scream and the camera forgiven him just before he landed at the end of the Sing-the-Sngys Punchline, ” Minorrrrrr. ”
It was quite a spectacle – maybe the peak of any rap battle. And it doesn’t count a brief moment when the tennis was great (and called the former drakea paramoura) Serena Williams on stage and Crip went with Glee.
Given that Lamar’s ensemble, conceptually, came to the question “not like us”, mostly held things with a curiously low key for the rest of the time. Rather than wrap in each of his hits – for example, no “OK” or “bitch, don’t kill my vibration” – leaned on songs from your The latest LP, “GNX”: “Man in the Garden”, “Peekaboo” and at the very beginning of the set a little unreleased song he used as a promotion of the album.
SZA came out to show two of their duets – “Luther” and “All the Stars” – but they felt insufficiently cooked and almost sharply nore. They could be read as a commentary on such a type of concessions – especially black artists and especially rappers – had to be historically ensured to ensure a wider taste and acceptance. (Show Halftime had its first hip-hop headliner In 2022.)
Lamar himself emphasized this point with the inclusion of the Greek choir of one person: Samuel L. Jackson, dressed as Uncle Sam and Goading Lamar and the audience throughout the scene.
After two songs SZA Jackson said, “That’s what America wants – nice, calm. You’re almost there – don’t do it … ”that Lamar then interrupted“ not like us ”.
This was Lamar’s other winning blow here: weaving metanarartives of night performance for the show itself. Should a song full of accusations that have become the subject of the action? Can a black artist ethically perform at the Half -time show Super Bowl, the Crown jewel of the NFL, an institution that took over another political valence after the Black Lives Matter movement and protests with Colin Kaepernicka?
After the “squabble up”, Jackson appeared to secrete Lamara: “Too loud, too ruthless, too ghetto – Mr. Lamar, do you really know how to play the game?” And so Lamar followed “Humble”, during which his dancers – equipped in red, white and blue tracksuits – accepted the foundation of the American flag.
At the top of the set Lamar warned, “Revolution” to be broadcast – you chose the right time, but a bad person. “But in general, although Lamar nodded at these larger struggles, he mostly reduced his passions to the most personal. This was one of the greatest stages of music, liberated to Vendetta.
At least one a person who was part of a half -time show He had a different idea of how to use the performance in progress in the program. At the end of the set, he pulled a banner combining the flags of Palestine and Sudan, which contained heart and fist. Was this part of the performance, the next level of comment woven to the show that is already charged?
In the shots captured from inside the stadium, but not broadcast, this individual was persecuted from the main stage just a few seconds after the flag was eliminated. He ran past the field for magic before he was dealt with by the coteria of security guards in suits and carried the field. This revolution would not be broadcast.