All Eyes on Kendrick: Sports Fans, Trump and America Alike
By Emily Thorsen
“This is the great American game,” yelled Uncle Sam, played by actor Samuel L. Jackson. Uncle Sam proceeded to introduce rap musician Kendrick Lamar as the Halftime Show performer for the 2025 Super Bowl.
Since Sunday’s performance, the rhetorical choices made by the artist have been both celebrated and criticized. With 133.5 million viewers, this was the most-watched Halftime Show of all time. Prominent amongst them was President Donald Trump, making him the first sitting president to attend a Super Bowl.
The camera pans back to show the field arranged in a tic-tac-toe formation, representing not only Lamar’s life but also our political lives as Americans. This can be construed as Americans not feeling progress under a two-party political system, or how marginalized groups feel the government is working against their best interests.
If you are familiar with Lamar before watching this performance, you know he incorporates his own life experiences as a black man growing up on the rough streets of Compton, California. His solo performance, compared to 2022, when he shared the stage alongside Snoop Dogg, Mary J. Blige, Dr. Dre, and Eminem, shows his progression as an artist of the people during such a tumultuous time in history.
Throughout the show, the camera pans between Kendrick performing songs such as “Squabble Up” and “Man in the Garden” off his newest album, “GNX,” and Uncle Sam satirically commenting on the performance. Uncle Sam interjects, “No, no, no, no! Too loud, too reckless—too ghetto!” “Squabble Up” references Lamar’s unapologetic music style when it comes to critiques by the industry and by white people who will never understand what it means to live as a black person in America.
Lamar incorporated an all-black dance ensemble dressed in red, white and blue to convey how America was built on the backs of immigrants and descendants of enslaved Africans forcibly brought across the Atlantic in chains. Together with Lamar, the dancers formed an American flag complete with Black Power fists, symbolizing the legacy of the Black Panther Party and its support of Black communities nationwide when the government fell short.
Kendrick Lamar was joined by musical collaborator SZA to perform joint songs such as “Luther” and “All The Stars.” At one point, the camera pans to Serena Williams crip walking on stage – a dance move created by the Los Angeles street gang the Crips. Williams also happens to be an ex-girlfriend of fellow rap artist Drake.
Tensions between Lamar and Drake have grown since the release of various diss tracks, such as “Not Like Us,” which won Kendrick five Grammy awards. However, Drake was not the only one to be directly called out during this historic Super Bowl Halftime Show performance.
“[The] revolution about to be televised, you picked the right time for the wrong guy,” said Lamar, leaving many to speculate that the “wrong guy” America picked was the one in the audience whose name everyone knew, President Trump.
The patriotic imagery that decorated the performance may well have been intended to attract the president’s and the rest of America’s attention in an attempt to “diss” the country’s choice of leader.