Kendrick Lamar on being the first solo rap headliner at the Super Bowl halftime show: Puts the culture on the forefront
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.“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 li...