Nearly a yr after the battle, Kendrick Lamar has gained the struggle : NPR

Massive because the Tremendous Bowl, however the distinction is, they actually not like Kendrick.

When J. Cole and Drake determined to go a little bit too heavy on the G.O.A.T speak on their 2023 collab “First Individual Shooter,” and J. Cole (not even Drake!) drew consideration to the concept that he and Drizzy put themselves on the Compton rapper’s degree, a long-brewing contempt lastly bubbled over. Within the yr since Kendrick Lamar put out his first response with a combative verse on Future and Metro Boomin’s “Like That,” he has conquered the radio, the Grammys and America’s largest stage, lapping anybody who believed they have been his friends within the course of.

At Tremendous Bowl LIX, Kendrick indulged in layering the private with the political. He made positive his history-making halftime live performance was greater than only a present. It was a victory lap for a yr’s price of labor taking the tradition to new heights and his pettiness to new lows.

The rap beef between Kendrick Lamar and Drake dominated 2024 for good cause. As a flagbearer for the artform of rap, Kendrick’s disdain for the “singing n****” had been brewing inside him for years. They started as collaborators, with Drake guesting on the R&B-idling, good child, m.A.A.d metropolis lower “Poetic Justice” and even inviting Lamar to be his tour opener. In 2013, when Lamar planted the flag claiming he was one of the best competitor in rap, coming for each certainly one of his contemporaries on his “Management” visitor verse, he did not single Drake out, nevertheless it was a slight Drake held onto.

From then on, the seeds of animosity had been planted. As years handed and the 2 artists’ paths diverged, one discovered the music business’s candy spot balancing the rap-pop ratio. He broke data held by the Beatles. He pumped out an extra of music and have become a business star like hip-hop has by no means seen. The opposite studied himself, his environment, the system and the artform of lyricism. He burrowed into the corners of his creativity and delivered paced-out idea albums that interrogated energy. A type of albums was awarded a Pulitzer Prize. After years of being separate but nonetheless in one another’s orbit, Might 2024 was the second they lastly converged once more.

There aren’t any guidelines in rap beef, so when this conflict of titans lastly went down, it set new precedents in ruthlessness. Now, even after the music portion ended final Might, the lengthy tail of the battle has reached new crescendos, too. With infectious pop components, Kendrick Lamar’s “Not Like Us” bested Drake at his personal specialty, breaking streaming and Billboard chart data. The brand new, scorched earth vitality Lamar has been in a position to channel fueled his sixth studio album, GNX, which set its personal data upon launch, surpassing one billion streams in lower than a month of its launch.

Exterior of hip-hop’s courtroom of public opinion, the music has set new precedents within the courtroom of regulation and in establishments just like the Recording Academy. In January, Drake took the trajectory of a diss monitor into authorized areas for the primary time by suing Common Music Group for defamation, arguing that the label knowingly distributing and selling a monitor that accuses the Toronto rapper of pedophilia and little one grooming — an accusation Drake has repeatedly denied — has put his life and repute in peril. In February, having garnered a number of nominations for “Not Like Us,” Lamar took dwelling 5 Grammy Awards for the monitor, together with report and music of the yr, cementing the urgency, execution and influence of a diss monitor into historical past for the primary time. After which got here the Tremendous Bowl.

Each component of Kendrick Lamar’s highly-anticipated halftime efficiency held a number of meanings. Lamar, a lyricist identified for triple and quadruple entendres, turned the sphere right into a PlayStation sport controller, a arrange of how transferring by means of America as a Black particular person requires tactical precision. Because the present progressed, his strikes throughout the controller obtained extra gully, breaking the foundations of engagement. He employed Samuel L. Jackson to play a lurking Uncle Sam, the stand-in for the nation’s punitive carceral state, the adjudicator of political correctness, the deductor of life for the Compton rapper bringing his ghetto “homeboys” with him because the “previous tradition cheat code.” He invited fellow Compton native Serena Williams as a shock visitor, who as a now-retired tennis champion free from her personal unsportsmanlike guidelines, obtained to essentially do her stroll.

He organized for Black dancers to be wearing crimson, white and blue, a visible that pulled double obligation on the sphere, too. First, when in simply the appropriate formation, the dancers created an American flag that enveloped Ok.Dot. Second, just like his Juneteenth Pop Out present in Los Angeles, the crimson and blue dancers blended to represent unity between Bloods and Crips, two gangs which have come to outline South LA with their ebb-and-flow peace and rivalry. On the Superdome, simply as on the Pop Out, Lamar made it clear that irrespective of the set or setting, that is about the actual over the pretend. And sure, after all, he carried out “Not Like Us.” It could have been enjoyable, however for Ok.Dot, there have been no video games being performed.

Although it was an viewers of thousands and thousands watching and deciphering Easter Eggs alongside the way in which, the 37-year-old auteur made it clear he was actually performing for an viewers of 1. However which one? On a nationwide degree, it could possibly be argued he was responding to President Donald Trump’s Tremendous Bowl attendance and the whole lot the brand new administration stands to snuff out about our numerous humanity, and transfer according to Lamar’s discography. (“Forty acres and a mule, that is larger than the music,” he proclaimed in the direction of the top of the present.) However on a private degree, whereas orchestrating this efficiency stuffed with political symbolism, Lamar was additionally diabolically staring into the eyes of his defeated rap adversary. He took the chance to prioritize his ego over ethos and ran with it.

Whereas Lamar has continued to make historical past in America and set himself as much as take this victory lap on the street with SZA on an upcoming nationwide summer season tour, Drake has opted for performing midway world wide. The Canadian rapper is at present on the street in Australia. It is probably the farthest place from hip-hop’s start place. (“Not Like Us” remains to be licensed three-times platinum there.) To this point, Drake has appeared onstage donning a smoking hoodie stuffed with bullet holes to speak he cannot be killed. However Sunday, Lamar smirked as he made unflinching eye contact with the digital camera to rap the road, “Say Drake, I hear you want ’em younger.” A screenshot of this second has already been made into numerous memes to indicate the second somebody snaps, however within the case of the originator, there’s calibrated, clear-eyed serenity to Kendrick. He knew then, months after the battle had been over, he’d formally rewrote the foundations of struggle.