At the Caesars Superdome in New Orleans, Kendrick Lamar rendered one of his boldest yet, using the biggest stage in American sports to reinforce his dominance in hip-hop and remind everyone why he remains one of the most ferocious rappers of his generation.

There was never a question of whether Kendrick Lamar would give a great show. The real question was how, and just how far he’d be willing to go. Renouncing every banality for a performance that was both intellectually stimulating and culturally resonant, the show commenced with the venerable Samuel L. Jackson as Uncle Sam — a callback to his character in Tarantino’s revisionist western, Django, where he played a twisted sycophantic house servant.

 

View this post on Instagram

 

A post shared by NFL (@nfl)

It was an obvious, deliberate and incisive symbol of America’s historical censorship of hip-hop and Black expression as Uncle Sam kept trying to police the performance, “too loud, too ghetto,” he complained.

Lamar emerged from a 1980s Buick Regal coupe, surrounded by dancers adorned in red, white, and blue, a visual nod to the American flag. The choreography was a medley of West Coast crip walking, krumping, and modern interpretive dance, their movements uniformed and militant.

 

View this post on Instagram

 

A post shared by NFL (@nfl)

The setlist pulled no punches. The rapper tore through tracks such as “squabble up,” “Humble,” “DNA,” “Man at the Garden,” and the provocative, Drake-smearing “Not Like Us.” The latter was delivered with unflinching conviction of its impact and complemented with a taunting smirk right as Kendrick was about to rap. The Mustard-produced track, which became an instant cultural phenomenon last year, was a full-scale humiliation of Drake, flipping his OVO owl into a joke and branding him a predator with the now-infamous line, “Say, Drake, I heard you like ’em young.” The song broke records, spent weeks at No. 1, and just last week, swept the Grammys, making it the most-awarded rap song of the year. Given the ongoing legal disputes surrounding the song, many speculated whether it would be included in the setlist. Lamar taunted, during the show, “I wanna perform they favorite song, but you know they love to sue.”

 

View this post on Instagram

 

A post shared by NFL (@nfl)

Although the track was performed with slight lyrical modifications, omitting some of the most contentious lines, he didn’t stutter at calling out “Drake” and his alleged criminal preferences for “a minoorrrr”. As if that wasn’t enough, Serena Williams stepped onto the stage and hit the Crip Walk during the song.

 

View this post on Instagram

 

A post shared by NFL (@nfl)

SZA joined Kendrick Lamar for “All the Stars” and “luther”, bringing a softer, melodic contrast to the hardcore performance.

 

View this post on Instagram

 

A post shared by NFL (@nfl)

Then came the closer —  the crowd pleaser “tv off,” which Mustard performed alongside Lamar.

The performance was not without its challenges. Some viewers noted audio issues, with Lamar and SZA’s microphones appearing subdued at times, which momentarily hindered the show’s impact. Despite these technical hiccups, the visual and thematic elements remained forceful.

Kendrick Lamar doesn’t do subtle. The Pulitzer-Prize winner has long been appraised and dissected as too cerebral, too dense, too political, thriving in the complex. With the current political climate in the U.S and the president’s appearance at the game, Lamar’s halftime show was expected to carry a certain weight as he has never been one to shy away from discussing political matters. Though the Super Bowl is a stage historically scrubbed clean of overt political messaging, as he’s wont to do, K.Dot gave us a performance that was as entertaining as it was a political treatise. And for 13 minutes, he had the world watching.