Any fans of the University of Arizona Symphonic Marching Band out there? How about the Grambling State University Marching Band? While these brass-heavy ensembles might not be much known beyond their respective college campuses, they share a distinction with Madonna, Michael Jackson and the Rolling Stones – headlining the Super Bowl halftime show. America’s big American football match used to book traditional brass bands for entertainment. But in the 1990s, worried about ratings, it started hiring pop stars instead.
The latest of these is Kendrick Lamar, who will headline the next Super Bowl in New Orleans on 9th February 2025. In a wry announcement video, we see Lamar standing on a sports pitch in front of a huge American flag, firing footballs out of a practice machine to some imaginary off-screen athletes. “My name’s Kendrick Lamar and I’ll be performing at Super Bowl LIX,” he says. “Will you be pulling up? I hope so. You know it’s only one opportunity to win a championship. No round twos.” Then he exclaims “Let’s get it!” and fires another ball, following it up with “Boom!” and a soft chuckle.
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This isn’t the first time he’s played the Super Bowl: in 2022, he was part of a guest-packed show overseen by Dr Dre. But Lamar’s headline slot has got the online rap world very excited, largely based on a line from his spiel: “No round twos.” Hip-hop oracles see this as a reference to Lamar’s beef with Drake. You lost, Aubrey, seems to be the message. Now I’m going to call you a sex offender in front of a TV audience of more than 100 million.
The prospect of “Not Like Us”, one of the catchiest and yet also most venomous diss tracks in rap history, blaring out of TVs across America and the world is, surely, the final, XXL, platinum-coated nail in Drake’s coffin. It’s bad enough that “Not Like Us” became a song of the summer – now it’s got a second wind timed for just when we would otherwise be forgetting about it. Lamar has been commended across the internet as the most accomplished, dedicated hater to ever hate. (The fact that Jay-Z’s record label, Roc Nation, plays a big role in booking the show has also been taken to mean that Drake is rapper non grata to Hov himself.)
For Drake, this will hurt. But how much, exactly? One irony being gleefully picked over online is that the Drake-J Cole collab “First Person Shooter” has a Drake-delivered chorus running: “Big as the what? / Big as the Super Bowl”. In the song, Cole mentions the “big three” – the pair plus Lamar – which was taken as a slander by Kendrick, who responded on “Like That”. Then the beef properly got going and the rest is history. Lamar upending a very specific Drizzy boast is essentially him firing another few rounds into the Canadian’s gently decaying body.
That said, “Big as the Super Bowl” doesn’t mean quite the same thing as “Big enough for the Super Bowl”. Maybe Drake’s too big for the half-time show, just as Taylor Swift is too big for Glastonbury. The stats partially back him up: at the end of last year, Drake’s It’s All a Blur surpassed Kendrick Lamar’s Big Steppers as the highest-grossing rap tour of all time. The 2024 leg of It’s All a Blur, for which Drake brought along J Cole, was even subtitled “Big As The What?”, implying the shows were more momentous than any halftime performance.
But though Drake might not need the Super Bowl, it’ll still sting to see his biggest rival do it. Lamar is happy to go dark for months, even years; Drake, however, loves being part of the moment. Unlike Swift, he’s not someone who stands aloof from things that might be below him – he gets stuck in and racks up views and streams. In 2021, when he was more or less as big as he is now, Drake even made a jokey cameo in a Super Bowl halftime advert, as “Drake from State Farm”, the lowly stand-in for superstar insurance salesman Jake from State Farm. For now, that’s as close to the pitch as he’s going to get.
