Kendrick Lamar's Story to America
- Millie Thompson
- Apr 4
- 3 min read
Updated: Apr 11
Kendrick Lamar, a rapper and songwriter had the opportunity at the start of 2025 to perform in the Super Bowl Halftime Show in New Orleans. Where he took the chance to tell a story to America about his journey in the music industry What were the meanings behind his performance? How did he put these meanings across? What will the performer do next?
The performance starts with Samual L Jackson dressed as Uncle Sam and according to the website of The Conversation the character represents the ‘patriotic ideal in popular culture’ and in this performance, Uncle Sam represents the ‘American opinion’ as Kendrick Lamar flows through his songs. The character introduces the music industry as a game and Kendrick Lamar is the main character trying to reach the top in the music industry and essentially winning.
The audience witnesses the difficulty the artist had to go through from the American society as Kendrick gets told at first his songs are ‘too loud, too ghetto.’ This is where the tone changes to a calm song with another artist, SZA, to be accepted by American society, a.k.a. Uncle Sam, as the character praises the artist for a calm song. This almost gives the message that Kendrick had to hide his true music to be successful and can’t deliver his meanings in an obvious way in his music.
After this, he uses the song ‘Not Like Us’ to further this meaning as the tennis player, Serena Williams, dances by doing the crip walk which emphasises the lack of acceptance in America as she was criticised in the 2012 Olympics for dancing after winning gold as she was said to be ‘glorifying gang violence.’
This performance was a smackback to society as America is rapidly changing due to the change of power and some like Kendrick Lamar don’t accept the new changes which were represented by the words ‘Warning Wrong Way’ with Trump being elected as the new president.
Even through all of his dancers, Kendrick was showing that America includes black Americans with dancers dressed as the American flag and by making a black actor Uncle Sam this changes the narrative of America with the new ideal of having a more diverse representation of an American and shows that times are changing and the acceptance of black Americans should’ve started a long time ago, but America to Kendrick feels like it’s going backwards.
Throughout the whole performance, Kendrick used the idea of America being a game to get his point across that if you want to be successful then you need to play the game of America which is referenced at the very start of the performance, ‘Welcome to the great American Game.’
Next for Kendrick is an announced grand national tour with himself and SZA which has created a huge buzz as the two make amazing music together and their music is always a fan favourite. Fans could expect new music from the artists on this tour and possibly new meanings for fans to unpack. Kendrick Lamar uses his music to tell a story, and music is his freedom of speech, which was represented at this year's halftime show.
