Kendrick Lamar’s Super Bowl halftime show puts L.A. culture in the spotlight

On Sunday afternoon, the Kansas City Chiefs went head-to-head against the Philadelphia Eagles in New Orleans. Los Angeles seemed as far removed as baseball.

But at the game’s midpoint, L.A. got its moment on the national broadcast. Rapper Kendrick Lamar, born and raised in Compton, took the stage to perform a set in which his pride in his home city was made a central theme.

The “TV Off” performer first appeared squatting on the hood of a Buick GNX, simultaneously the namesake of his newest album, a nod to L.A.’s famed muscle car culture and the very vehicle which Lamar’s father used to bring him home from the hospital on the day of his birth.

During the first song, an unreleased track rumored to be titled “bodies,” dancers clad in red, white, and blue, spilled out of the parked vehicle. They would provide the only ornament on the otherwise sparse set.

Serena Williams, who shares Lamar’s roots in Compton, performed the ‘Crip Walk’ — a dance originating in Compton and associated with the Crip gang — on stage during the performance. 

The music, mostly drawn from Lamar’s recent string of releases, paid tribute to L.A.’s musical heritage. The rapper’s sound has, over the last year, embraced two of California’s signature movements. Beat after beat melded synth lines drawn from SoCal G-Funk with wobbly, syncopated drums characteristic of Bay Area Hyphy.

Many of the most memorable songs of the performance — including “TV Off” and “Peekaboo” — follow this formula. 

The performance culminated with a partial rendition of “Not Like Us,” Lamar’s 2024 mega-hit borne from his beef with Canadian rapper Drake. In it, Lamar excoriates Drake for his perceived affectation of American Black culture, and accuses him of being a “tourist” who raids L.A. culture to improve his image.

“Not Like Us” is best known for a series of controversial lyrics in which Lamar accuses Drake of pedophilia. Yet, it’s also a song in which Lamar defends his connection with his hometown against outside imitators.

The track’s now-iconic refrain — “They not like us / they not like us / they not like us” — stands as both a rebuke of its target’s personal conduct and a regionalist paean to authentic L.A. music culture.

No one, Lamar’s performance seemed to say, does it like L.A.