Kendrick Lamar was way too focused on Drake during his performance at the Super Bowl LIX Halftime Show – so says Charlamagne Tha God.
Following Kenny’s set on Sunday night (February 9), Charlamagne and his co-hosts on The Breakfast Club shared their thoughts on air the next morning.
To the veteran radio host, he feels that Kendrick is so much more than a diss song and he didn’t even need to perform it on the big stage because he has so many other hits.
“I still wouldn’t have done ‘Not Like Us’ if I was Kendrick,” he said. “Kendrick is bigger than ‘Not Like Us.’ ‘Not Like Us ‘is a moment in time for Kendrick; it does not define him or who he is.”
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Later, he added: “At the end of the set it said ‘game over’ and I really hope it is at this point. You should never go past the mark you aim for in victory. […] I just wouldn’t give my opp and his minions that kind of love on that big ass stage.”
Roughly halfway through his set, the Compton rap star taunted his archrival by saying in a back-and-forth with female backup dancers: “I want to perform their favorite song… but you know they love to sue,” a clear nod to Drake’s controversial defamation lawsuit against Universal Music Group over “Not Like Us.”
During the actual performance of the track — the penultimate song in his set — Kendrick self-censored the “certified pedophile” line but smirked to the camera as he said: “Say Drake, I hear you like ’em young / You better not ever go to cell block one / To any [bitch] that talk to him and they in love / Just make sure you hide your lil’ sister from him.”
He also performed the lyrics: “Tryna strike a chord and it’s probably A minor,” with enthusiastic help from the capacity crowd.
The halftime show also included a surprise cameo from Drake’s ex-girlfriend and Compton native Serena Williams, who could be seen Crip Walking on an elevated stage as “Not Like Us” transitioned into the closing track, “TV Off.”
Another apparent dig at Drake came at the very end when the crowd lit up to display the words “Game Over,” which continued the video game theme of the performance.
Some fans also speculated that Kendrick’s chain, which featued a lower case “a” pendant, was a nod to his “A minor” line from “Not Like Us,” but it’s also the logo of his creative company pgLang.
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Drake, who is currently on tour several thousand miles away in Australia, has yet to comment on the performance.
