SZA is set to join Kendrick Lamar as his special guest when the superstar rapper headlines the Super Bowl LIX halftime show in New Orleans next month.
The big news was announced on Thursday (January 23) with a new ad spot from Apple Music.
K. Dot can be seen making a phone call on a football field in the clip, and as he begins to say he’s been thinking about a guest performance, SZA appears from behind and dumps Gatorade on him.
The Big Show goes down at the Caesars Superdome in NOLA on February 9.
Since SZA joined Top Dawg Entertainment as a largely unknown artist in 2013, she and former labelmate Kendrick Lamar have developed an undeniable creative chemistry across more than half a dozen collaborations, notching a string of Billboard Hot 100 hits, platinum plaques and Grammy nominations.
The pair will hit the road together later this year in support of the Compton native’s latest album GNX, which features a double dose of duets between him and Solána. The Grand National Tour will see them play arenas across North America (including in Toronto, the hometown of Kendrick’s fierce rival Drake) between April 19 and June 18.
A joint project between the pair has also been floated, with SZA recently fueling excitement by saying in an interview with Sherri Shepherd: “I would love that. I think that would be amazing. He’s such a genius.”
While no other acts are currently tapped to join Kendrick during his Halftime set, there is still room for surprises.
Last month, a member of SWV made a bid for the legendary group to share the stage with him – as K.Dot’s GNX cut “The Heart Pt. 6” features a sample of SWV’s 1996 hit “Use Your Heart.”
“Soooo @kendricklamar sampled our song “use your heart”. Wouldn’t it be a treat if we performed together at the Super Bowl? [Fingers] crossed,” she wrote on Threads on November 25.
While Kendrick has yet to respond, Lyons received a lot of support in the comments, including from model and former video vixen Esther Baxter.
Fans have also clamored for Lil Wayne to join, following the drama surrounding the New Orleans native not being chosen as the performer for his hometown.
Weezy made his disappointment at the snub public, which K. Dot addressed on GNX — prompting the Young Money legend to seemingly hit out at his “Mona Lisa” collaborator on social media.
But during an interview with Skip Bayless last month, Wayne confirmed that he and Kendrick have spoken and there’s no bad blood between them.
When asked about the possibility of him performing at the Super Bowl as a special guest, however, he quickly shut the idea down, saying that he’s “not even gonna be in the country” when the game takes place.
Kendrick is the Forest Gump of rap.
🚒I have nothing. My city burnt down and they blamed my favorite rapper BENDERICK LAMERS. I had so much yt homo pride for him too🤓 Now SZA is taking BENDERICK Super Bowl slot since she so much more popular than a weak f8ggot like Benderick 😔 I’m going to kill myself. FOR SURE📉 But not before posting some emojis🤣🤣🤣🤣
Schizophrenic retard
Dude gotta be the biggest fraud in rap right now. People really think he’s anti-institution and anti-industry, but clearly he has no issue accepting checks from those same institutions. Honestly a joke at this point.
Where does he claim to be either of those things?
I agree I mean he’s been on theatre kid stuff his whole career, he’s fake hood his cousin Baby Keem fish face came up from a good family, he signed to woman beater and closet case Dr Dre who signed another closet case Eminem and 50 Cent, he worked with others who sexualized women like Future and probably go after underage girls too, and he worked with Disney for Black Panther now he’s working with the South Park guys. He also said call out comedians attacking black women but says nothing when Eminem went after Megan, Candace Owens, Mariah Carey, Coi Leray, then men like Ja Rule, Future, Migos, Nick Cannon, Benzino, and Michael Jackson or how he signed a fake thug in EZ Mill who appropriates culture pretending to be from NY or signed fake redneck Yelawolf who uses hard R to refer to black men, like bro is a massive hypocrite. Call out Drake fine but call everyone out. The Super Bowl thing is stupid since more corpo, Apple supports Trump, he’s still under UMG who are super corpo, he’s just a hypocrite and working with Jay-Z. Also Tupac is not from the west coast he’s from Baltimore and was another art kid who was gay and a actor. Only real thug was Eazy-E which is why Dre and Cube had him whacked to steal all his plans.
Uhhh his magnum opus TPAB… are you serious?
Typed this long ass waffle and said a whole bunch of nothing. Go suck a dick 🤡
Kdot the goat! I suspect he has more up his sleave
Kdot the goat! I suspect he has more up his sleave
Oh, I love this crooked booty black bitch. Her and the Kendrick guy are very tremendous. Snoop Dogg told me they are great. We will be there singing Not Like Us at the Super Bowl.
SZA is so fake and stupid Drake will expose her the entire appearance Drake made that he paid for her lips and while reconstruction. Kai Cenat Drake made him too that boy a Diddy clone. Lebron Drake will out all the laundry Kanye already exposed Chris Paul. All these companies about to go under Google, Apple, Amazon, TikTok they’re about to feel the wrath of OVO!! NFL and RocNation too and the NBA. Drake has that power.