Kendrick Lamar’s Super Bowl performance proves Drake will win in the long term | Opinion
Because of Kendrick Lamar’s Super Bowl halftime performance, a lot of my friends have been checking up on me.
Lamar’s “Not Like Us” has been the bane of my existence since it hit the mainstream last year. It’s the centerpiece of Lamar’s attack against fellow rapper and my idol, Drake. Every time those two annoying chords at the beginning of that song come on it’s like pressing my eye-roll button.
Now, I’m sure coming to the aid of the guy that our culture has come to collectively despise makes me a cultural outcast in my own country. But the fact of the matter is that in this feud between Lamar, from Compton, and a biracial Canadian raised in the Jewish faith, Drake’s side has never been given a chance.
Lamar’s song features an onslaught of attacks on Drake’s character, even going so far as calling him a pedophile. Most people will only remember this hit record, but I will remember the other diss songs from Lamar that attacked Drake’s biracial upbringing and went so far as calling him a colonizer.
All of that hate was the centerpiece of Lamar’s performance at the Super Bowl halftime show.
The entire thing was a huge tease for the only song that made Kendrick Lamar relevant again, “Not Like Us.” Lamar even referenced the pending lawsuit that Drake has with Universal, with the rapper claiming that the use of the title “pedophile” has put him and his reputation at risk, rightfully so. Even Drake’s two exes, tennis great Serena Williams and R&B Singer SZA appeared in the performance from the New Orleans Super Dome.
I couldn’t possibly understand how an artist, who has only released three albums in seven years got to perform at the biggest event of the year. Well, Drake had the answer all alone.
Drake was right
Drake’s disses have called out Lamar for the disingenuous person that he is.
In one of Drake’s diss songs “Family Matters,” he rapped “Kendrick just opened his mouth, somebody hands him a Grammy right now” signaling the Grammy’s favor of Lamar. Life recently followed art when Lamar was awarded five Grammys.
Drake also alluded to how this feud finally got him back into making music, as Lamar has made only three albums in the last ten years.
To assume that Drake has been humiliated is to not give what he was saying a chance. Lamar’s “sweep” at the Grammy’s doesn’t matter to an artist who, when awarded his own Grammy, took to remind artists of its insignificance.
Sure, Lamar won the short-term battle with a hit award-winning song, but in the war, Drake has shown that Lamar is nothing more than a privileged inner circle crony whose success relies on him not biting the hand that feeds him. In this case, it’s the Recording Industry of the United States.
Drake has been a man of the people, of the fans who choose to use their hard-earned money to see him. Lamar is just a guy that record executives and the music elite adore. He is put on a pedestal that keeps him from having true accountability for the poor music that he has put out.
Quit making everyone a villain
No one ever calls out his hypocrisy. In the music video for his song “The Heart: Part 5,” Lamar can be seen taking on the faces of prominent Black people while rapping. At one point he raps “In the land where hurt people hurt more people...callin’ it culture.”
Well starting a rap beef where you end up falsely calling someone a pedophile surely sounds like someone who is hurt. Trying to stomp on someone’s name is not someone that society should admire. Yet here we are.
Drake is in the midst of a witch hunt that our society has created. His downward spiral in popularity shows us that we are more intrigued by painting someone as a villain than appreciating their greatness.
Sunday showed a lot of people something that I have always thought about Lamar, he is overrated and does not deserve the status that he has.
The dust will settle from this rap beef and it will show Drake on top.
This story was originally published February 10, 2025 at 4:34 PM.
