Kendrick Lamar has announced that he will be headlining the prestigious Super Bowl Halftime Show in 2025.
In a video posted to the rapper’s YouTube channel on Sunday (September 8), Lamar is seen standing on a football field in front of a giant American flag, firing off footballs into the distance.
“What you doing everybody? My name’s Kendrick Lamar, and I’ll be performing at Super Bowl LIX,” he says to camera. “Will you be pulling up? I hope so! You know there’s only one opportunity to win the championship, no round twos. Let’s get it!”
“I don’t want you to miss it. Meet me in New Orleans, February 9, 2025. Wear your best dress too, even if you’re watching from home. Let’s go.”
The championship game for the current NFL season will take place at the Caesars Superdome in the Louisiana city.
Lamar has previously played the Halftime show, as a guest during Dr. Dre’s all-star show in 2022 that also included appearances from Snoop Dogg, Mary J. Blige, Eminem and 50 Cent.
In a statement from the rapper about the news, he said: “Rap music is still the most impactful genre to date. And I’ll be there to remind the world why. They got the right one.”
This year’s Halftime Show was headlined by Usher, who was joined by Alicia Keys, H.E.R and will.i.am.
It has already been quite a year for Kendrick, with his beef with Drake dominating entertainment headlines for months on end earlier this year.
Most observers judged Lamar to have won the feud, which had been bubbling since 2013, and exploded when Kendrick featured on ‘Like That’ from Metro Boomin and Future’s joint album ‘We Don’t Trust You’.
Lamar dropped ‘Not Like Us’ – his fourth Drake diss track – in May, telling the Canadian rapper: “Say Drake, I hear you like ’em young/ You better not ever go to cell block one/ To any bitch that talk to him and layin’ love/ Just make sure you hide your little sister from ’em,.”
The song topped the Billboard Hot 100 and broke the Spotify record for the most streamed rap song in one day, while also being named one of TikTok’s Songs of the Summer.
Numerous rap luminaries chimed in to share their thoughts on the spat, including André 3000, who said it made him feel “a little sad”, and Questlove, who called it “wrestling match level mudslinging and takedown by any means necessary”.
More recently, Mustard – who produced ‘Not Like Us’ for Kendrick – branded Drake as a “strange guy”, while billionaire Michael Rubin banned that particular song from his annual party this year, due to Drake’s attendance.
