Decrypting the Symbolism in Kendrick Lamar’s Super Bowl Halftime Show

Ahead of Sunday night, Kendrick Lamar promised to deliver “storytelling” in his Super Bowl Halftime performance in New Orleans. And, while dropping a career-spanning set over 13 minutes amid dancers clad in red, white and blue, the multi-platinum-selling rapper and this year’s Grammy Awards darling spun a narrative equally about a politically divided America (while still putting a nail in the coffin of his feud with rapper Drake).

Before the lights went up on Lamar as he launched into the performance, which marked the Super Bowl’s first-ever solo rap halftime show, the field at Caesar’s Superdome was lit into nine squares with Xs, Os and triangles popping up within. A familiar face appeared on the floor as iconic actor Samuel L. Jackson, dressed as American icon Uncle Sam, welcomed the audience to “the great American game.” Lights in the stadium crowd spell out: START HERE above a downward pointing arrow squarely on a Lamar, kneeling in front of a Buick GNX, an unspoken nod to his latest LP, GNX. He wore denim jeans and a jacket with “Gloria” emblazoned on the back, a reference to the closing track on that album. 

With this, Lamar and the show’s art director Shelley Rodgers draw a connection between video games and Lamar’s modern American experience, culturally and politically. The shapes and language displayed in lights pull from the X/O/triangle found on a PlayStation remote control; START HERE is a common gaming instruction. As the show carried on, it became clear that the four stages used during the performance were shaped like the PlayStation controller. Rodgers explained this in an interview with Wired magazine.

“I think the was symbolic, his way to reach young people,” Rodgers told the magazine. “A lot of it is showing his journey, traveling through the American dream.”

Jackson, hamming it up as the personification of America, represented a not-so-subtle stand-in for the American political establishment — an idea made clearer when he admonished Lamar after the singer launched into a first rush of rapping his track, “Squabble Up,” from his surprise 2024 record.

“Too loud, too reckless, too ghetto,” Jackson’s Uncle Sam interjected, offering his unrequested critique of the rapper, who has the unheard of distinction of winning the Pulitzer Prize for DAMN in 2018.

Two favorites from that record came soon after, as Lamar rapped the hit single “HUMBLE” and “DNA.” Having tumbled out of the gutted GNX, an impossible number of dancers, all Black men and women dressed in red, white and blue — or the colors of the American flag — leaned, nodded and moved in tight unison. At a point, they grouped to form an American flag, their backs turned toward each other with Lamar there in the middle. America’s stubborn division was reflected at the nation on the largest stage possible. 

Soon, the lights in the crowd spelled out “WARNING WRONG WAY.” With this, Lamar may be referencing a directive found in video games, America under the second Trump administration or the fact that much of the back half of his set carried on and ultimately concluded (for now) his beef with Drake, a feud that just won Lamar five Grammys for the rap-war’s culmination track, “Not Like Us.” 

Whether Lamar would perform the controversial song, which has now spawned a lawsuit filed by Drake against his and Lamar’s shared distributor, Universal Music, over a lyric calling him a pedophile. On Sunday night, Lamar dropped the pedo line from “Not Like Us,” and while winking at the soon-to-come performance of the offending hit track, said, “I want to perform their favorite song, but you know they love to sue.”

The pedophile lyric from “Not Like Us” brings a reference to Drake’s 2021 album Certified Lover Boy; Lamar raps: “Certified lover boy?/Certified pedophiles.” At the Superdome, the final word was replaced with a man yelping. Lamar did, however, keep in the more subtle line, “I heard you like ‘em young.”

Lamar also wore a necklace with a lowercase “a” throughout Sunday’s rapid-fire set. Some saw this as a reference to the logo of pgLang, the company he founded with Dave Free. But others, perhaps reading too far into things (but perhaps not), saw a reference to an iconic lyric from “Not Like Us,” where Lamar raps about Drake: ”Tryna strike a chord and it’s probably A Minor.”

Then there’s Lamar’s two female guests, who appeared on stage with him during the set: SZA, his frequent collaborator, and tennis great Serena Williams. The former performed sections of two of their collaborations, “Luther” and “All the Stars.” The latter danced solo amid a crowd of backup dancers, giving a much better repeat performance of the “crip walk” that got her in some hot water after she did the move on-court following her win at Wimbledon in 2012. The move, used by Crips at parties to display affiliation, involves maneuvering one’s feet to spell C-R-I-P.

Drake dated both women in the past: SZA in 2009 and Williams in 2015. The relationship with SZA was revealed in Drake’s track, “Mr. Right Now” as a 2008 affair but she has since corrected him, tweeting it was in 2009 and adding that she “didn’t want anybody thinking anything underage or creepy was happening.” Williams, who like Lamar, grew up in Compton, California, is referenced in “Not Like Us” when he warns Drake he “better not speak on Serena.”

The dual themes gave audiences plenty to unpack and the references mentioned here are not by any means a definitive or exhaustive list of all that was included. With his tight and must-be-mentioned brilliantly shot performance, Lamar managed to convey dual narratives, one with a broad scope and another that’s entirely idiosyncratic yet defined a large part of the rap world over the past year. And he may have put the Drake beef to bed for good with the lights in the crowd displaying a final message pulled from video games and sent to his nemesis: GAME OVER.