“I see you brought your homeboys with you,” he snarls as Lamar gathers a block party of friends around a street light to debut “Man at the Garden”, “score-keeper, deduct one life.” The arrival of SZA, draped across a circular stage for the slow R&B of “Luther” and a swelling, soulful “All the Stars” from Lamar’s Black Panther soundtrack, however, pleases him with its (ironic) submissive conformity.
That troupes of Black dancers in red, white and blue spew out of Lamar’s GNX like a cool retro clown car and form the US flag for G-funk opener “Squabble Up” is the most forthright finger in Trump’s face from a proud and unbroken Black America.
Kendrick Lamar’s Drake-baiting was a smoke-screen – his Super Bowl show represented a righteous nation baring its teeth Hip-hop king’s performance will undoubtedly go down as one of the most important halftime shows in the history of the event, if not the most significant mass-televised rap performance of all time.
As Kendrick Lamar appears crouched in a spotlight on the hood of a classic GNX car beneath the crab-like eyes of Donald J Trump – the first sitting president ever to attend a Super Bowl – he seems impishly intent on using the biggest moment of his career so far to charm and disarm the cruel world order.
Many commentators expect this Super Bowl appearance – a huge sales, streams and profile boost for almost every previous performer from Beyoncé to last year’s star Usher – to catapult Lamar far above his rival, not just in terms of impact and respect but on paper too.
