Wake up! The 2025 Kendrick Lamar Super Bowl performance is way bigger than just a dramatic Drake diss. 

Let’s be real, not every performance that plays “Not Like Us” is a jab at Drake. If that’s all you saw, you missed the real message, and it wasn’t meant for you. 

The 2025 LIX Super Bowl halftime show received very mixed reviews, depending on the audience, some say it was “boring,” “underwhelming,” “the worst Super Bowl halftime show ever,” and some say it was “one of the best Super Bowl halftime shows ever.” These mixed reviews prove Kendrick’s main message that the performance was bigger than the music. 

Pulitzer Prize winner, 22-time Grammy winner, and rapper Kendrick Lamar is very intentional with the lyricism in his songs and the way he uses his platform. 

The visual aspect wasn’t just for show; it was a statement. The whole performance represents a video game on the stage which has a triangle, circle, x, and square which are all video game controller symbols. The performers dressed in sold color sweatsuits in red, white, and blue. The game host dressed as Uncle Sam carried layers of meanings about power and control.

Uncle Sam, portrayed by actor Samuel L. Jackson, welcomed the audience to  “The Great American Game.”  

Uncle Sam was originally a wartime propaganda figure to show the typical ‘White American man,’ which makes his image even more powerful by being represented by a Black man, specifically an actor known for portraying complex and sometimes controversial Black figures. 

This was no accident. Kendrick choosing Samuel L. Jackson as the host is also extremely clever because it’s a double entendre reference to Uncle Tom, which Jackson’s character Stephen in Django was based on. Uncle Tom is an offensive term used to describe Black men who are excessively obedient to white people and also considered a sellout.

Uncle Sam also is a symbol of the American power structure and alludes to the fact that America is like a game, and everyone is a player in the game: some win, some lose, some kill to win and some rig the system. Kendrick called attention to the fact people in American society are getting played. 

The performance then began with the Black performers in solid black colors singing and dancing to disco music, which is rooted in Black culture. Then, Uncle Sam scolded the performers for being “too loud,” “too reckless,” and “too ghetto:” all words used to degrade the Black community for years. When Kendrick switched to performing more mellow songs, Uncle Sam said, “This is what the American people want,” symbolizing how America tries to silence people of color, mainly Black people because the culture is deemed “too loud” and “too the ghetto.” 

Overall, during the duration of the show, Uncle Sam praised Kendrick for how he behaves or scolded him on how he’s not acting ‘properly.’ At one point, Uncle Sam said, “Game keep deduct one life,” which is a symbol of how Black people are treated in the U.S. If Black people don’t behave ‘properly’ by code-switching or being palatable, then they’re going to be chastised and looked down upon in the U.S. 

Then, the audience was introduced to the dancers dressed in red, white, and blue and in the formation of an American flag with Kendrick standing in the middle. Though the sweatsuit colors they wore were configured to form the American flag, it also alluded to “Squid Games.” In “Squid Games,” the players wore different colors based on their status in the game and everyone was playing to win the jackpot in the end, and they were willing to fight each other to win. As people died throughout “Squid Games,” the jackpot increased.

“Squid Games” is a symbol of capitalism and how when people at the bottom continue to fight each other in hopes of “winning the money” the actuality is no one wins. So Kendrick standing in the middle of the flag isn’t just symbolism of how the country is divided, but also how people of different ethnicities and social and economic statuses are still divided regardless of their political party.

During this portion of the performance, Kendrick performed his song “Humble,” further emphasizing the point of “sit down,” don’t be too loud, don’t be too ghetto, “stay humble,” and stay silent. The song also serves to call out the power structure of America to sit down and reflect on the division this kind of rhetoric is causing in America. It is also worth noting that during this song the dancers were sitting on the ground as the flag which serves as an act of defiance.

At the end of the performance, Kendrick performed his viral diss track “Not Like Us,” which he had been legally advised not to perform because of the ongoing lawsuit from Drake for defamation against his label Universal Music Group (UMG).

During “Not Like Us,” tennis player Serena Williams did the C-Walk. This was significant because Williams received backlash and was publicly scolded for celebrating her win at the 2012 London Olympics. 

So her moment and Lamar saying, “The revolution ‘bout to be televised. You picked the right time but the wrong guy,” is a symbol of influential people representing their authentic values, regardless of what the entertainment industry and mainstream America wants them to do.

In the very end, he performed his song “TV Off” and repeated “Turn this TV off” several times because, in the U.S.’s capitalistic society, the way to keep people distracted through entertainment. The Super Bowl is one of the most televised events throughout the entire year, which is a distraction for most Americans from their daily lives. 

The revolution was televised. Were you really watching?