Kendrick Had To Do It To ‘Em
Last night, the Philadelphia Eagles absolutely whomped the defending Super Bowl champions, the Kansas City Chiefs. The game itself was interesting to watch in the way that it’s interesting to watch someone have a nervous breakdown (we’re looking at you Mahomes), but other than that, the game was a bit of a slog once the third quarter hit and the defensive line for the Eagles continued their Genghis Khan-esque domination. But that’s not why we’re here. We’re here to talk Kendrick Lamar.
Conservative pundits and terminally online trolls have called the performance boring, but the 15 minutes of pure haterade was anything but. Luckily we were able to see this show from the AFC field goal line.
We were on hand for last night’s game, and the energy in the Caesar Superdome was absolutely electric from the moment the crew began setting up for halftime. When the lights went down and Samuel L. Jackson (dressed as his pseudo Greek chorus character from the criminally underseen Chi-Raq) introduced Lamar it was absolute bedlam from start to finish.
Lamar has come a long way in the last decade; from a Compton blog-core hip hop underdog to the most famous rapper in the world, and he has the deep catalogue to prove it. Rather than powering through a catalogue of mega-hits (MAAD City, Backseat Freestyle, Humble, etc etc etc), Lamar focused on the here, the now, the most haterist of his tracks.
Throughout the set he teased “Not Like Us,” the number one smash that has Drake hiding in Australia while his lawyers continue to fire off missives to UMG. He dropped not so subtle hints to the ongoing feud by bringing out Serena Williams to crip walk, locking eyes with the camera while mentioning how Drake allegedly prefers younger women, and oh, by just showing off that he’s the best to ever do it.
When Lamar finally dropped “Not Like Us,” there was no tedium felt in the audience - especially when the 69,000 plus folks in attendance shouted “A Minooooor” along with the diss track with Mustard dancing to his own beat on live television.
With a world tour featuring SZA on the books this year, we’re guessing this is just the beginning of a victory lap for Mr. Morale.
