Playing the biggest stage in the game at the Super Bowl halftime show, Kendrick Lamar will tap into the combative energy that will be going down between the Kansas City Chiefs and the Philadelphia Eagles.
It’s the same competitive spirit that he has always brought to his rap attack.
“My intent was to always keep … the nature of it as a sport,” Lamar, 37, said during an exclusive interview on Thursday with Apple Music , which sponsors the halftime show. “I love when artists grit their teeth. Like, I still watch battle raps. I still watch Smack/URL, from Murda Mook to [Loaded] Lux to Tay Roc, my bro Daylyt. This has always been the core definition of who I am, and it’s been that way since day one.”
Lamar will be in the ring by himself on Sunday at the Caesars Superdome in New Orleans as the first solo rapper to headline the Super Bowl — after previously appearing in the Dr. Dre-led halftime show alongside Eminem, Mary J. Blige, Snoop Dogg and 50 Cent in 2022.
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“How I process it all is just, I continue to do what I was doing 10 years ago, and that’s, like, get better in myself, better in the craft, and not look at the bright lights,” he said. “I gotta look at myself in the mirror rather than looking at the crowd or, you know, fame and attention.”
Coming out of the streets of Compton, Calif., the idea of headlining the Super Bowl halftime show was never in Lamar’s wildest dreams.
“I wasn’t thinking about no Super Bowl, for sure,” he said. “We was thinking about the best verse and how we gonna split the $5 at Church’s Chicken or something like that. It wasn’t no Super Bowl — it was going to the studio and getting a meal. But what I know is, the passion I have now is still the passion I had then. And I think that carried on to the Super Bowl.”
Lamar said that “being present” has also helped prepare him for this moment.
“It was all about being present,” he said. “Long as I was present in the studio and present in whatever that line was … I think being present and not actually foreseeing everything kept me in the grounded state of mind in order to be in, you know, big stages like this.”
And after winning five Grammys on Sunday, including Record and Song of the Year for “Not Like Us” — bringing his total gramophone haul to 22 — the 2018 Pulitzer Prize recipient is elevating hip-hop culture once again with his Super Bowl halftime show.
“It made me think about, like, the grind of it,” he said. “A lot of people don’t see the story before the glory, man, and that s—t’s like shuffling out your mixtapes and, you know, going to neighborhoods and parties and performing at hole-in-the-wall spots.
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“So for me, this [means] everything, because it puts the culture on the forefront where it needs to be, and not minimized to just a catchy song or verse. This is a true art form, so to represent it on this type of stage is, like, everything that I’ve worked for and everything that I believe in. As far as the culture, I live and die by it. This s—t done changed my whole family’s life, so I don’t take it for granted at all.”
Lamar will be joined by SZA as his special guest for the halftime show. The two have previously collaborated on hits such as 2018’s “All the Stars” and 2024’s “Luther,” and they will hit the road together on the Grand National Tour coming to stadiums beginning April 19 in Minneapolis.
“We’ve been moving fast, like, far as production and rehearsals and stuff,” he said. “So we speak, but we haven’t really got a chance to settle into the moment. For me personally, watching her, her career and where she’s come from, it’s amazing to see … And I’m just honored to be next to her talent.”
As for what else we can expect on Sunday, Lamar shared that his halftime show will involve “storytelling.”
“I’ve always been very open about storytelling through all my catalog and my history of music, and I’ve always had a passion about bringing that on whatever stage I’m on,” he said.
“Whether it’s a world tour or whether it was 500 people at Key Club, I’ve always had a form of that, so I like to always carry on that sense of, you know, make people listen but also … think a little.”
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