“I love when artists grit their teeth”: does Kendrick Lamar’s halfime show prove rivalry in music is a good thing?
On February 9th, the Philadelphia Eagles won the Super Bowl 40 – 22. It was a shocking result, as the Eagles made the Kansas City Chiefs look borderline amateur, neutralising Patrick Mahomes, arguably one of the best quarterbacks ever to pick up a football. And yet, despite such an upset and head-turning result, hardly anybody spoke about it, as all conversation the following days focused on Kendrick Lamar and his halftime show.
Lamar’s 13-minute endeavour proved to be one of the most controversial halftime shows of all time, but this was always going to be the case. Firstly, because of the nature of the performance. Lamar is a political activist who performs a genre of music that is often met with contention during an event watched by nearly everyone in a divided America. The moment he declared, “The revolution about to be televised, you picked the right time but the wrong guy,” and had an all-Black dance crew stand to represent a torn American flag, it was already going to be a show that split opinion.
I’m not here to talk about the comments surrounding his show, which are deeply rooted in racism, be it ignorant or malicious. This is a deeper conversation, one that lies in the foundation of decades of operating within a broken system and not something that will be solved or even properly addressed during a Super Bowl halftime show and the comments afterwards. Lamar being the first solo rapper to headline the show, as someone who often raps about police violence, racism and appropriation, was always going to upset a lot of people, and realistically, those who were upset for what are racist reasons that they covered up as something else can go fuck themselves.
This piece will focus on another much-discussed aspect of the halftime show: Kendrick Lamar’s persistent references to his recent beef with Canadian rapper Drake. The beef took place predominantly throughout the summer of 2024. It began with Lamar releasing a verse on Future’s song ‘Like That’, which saw him address comments recently made by J Cole and Drake, saying those three were the greatest in modern hip-hop. Despite the shared glory, Lamar rejected it, with the line, “Fuck the big three, it’s just big me.”
J Cole took a back seat for the beef, but Lamar and Drake traded blows over a few weeks. Drake accused Lamar of beating his wife and her sleeping with his manager, Dave Free, on the track ‘Family Matters’. Meanwhile, Lamar wrote a letter to Drake’s family members, including his children, highlighting the different things that he doesn’t like about the Certified Lover Boy on ‘Meet The Grahams’.
In this song, Lamar threw some heavy allegations at Drake, calling him a predator, a gambling addict and someone who should be in prison for the rest of his life. “We gotta raise our daughters knowing there’s predators like him lurking,” wrote Lamar, “Fuck a rap battle, he should die so all of these women can live with a purpose.”
The song was brutal and was only out for 24 hours before Kendrick Lamar released another track, ‘Not Like Us’. This is the song that has become the most famous in the aftermath of the rap beef, as while it continues to throw heavy allegations at Drake, such as calling him a coloniser and a paedophile, it is also incredibly catchy and became a hit record. Drake responded with a song called ‘The Heart Pt 6’, but many dubbed it inferior and claimed Lamar won the rap beef. Drake eventually deleted his response, and Lamar has had a successful year following, performing at The Pop Out, where he played the song ‘Not Like Us’ six times, and securing the Super Bowl halftime show spot.
There is no definitive answer over who won the rap beef. While many claim it was Lamar, Drake’s fan base is strong and would argue otherwise. He recently performed a sold-out tour of Australia, announced that he is headlining all three nights at London’s Wireless Festival, and released a new album, $ome $exy $songs 4 U, which has divided opinion, as it was always going to.
We are currently seeing these two artists at their most divisive because of how much they have split rap fans. Lamar’s halftime performance was always going to be controversial because he’s a political rapper, but he didn’t even have the whole rap community behind him, as Drake fans dubbed the show trash. Equally, despite Drake’s persistent success, selling out stadiums, being the first performer to headline every night at a festival and releasing successful albums, people persistently say he fell off and can never be taken seriously as a rapper again after losing so drastically to Lamar in their beef.
While some might see this division as unnecessary, there is another way to look at it. Maybe this injection of opinion is what has been missing in music so much over the years. Maybe the thing to take away from the rap beef isn’t that Lamar won because of these reasons or Drake won because of these other reasons, but that we all won because we are now subject to some of the most exciting and well-thought-out work these artists have put out in a while.
During an interview before his halftime show, Lamar was asked about his intention behind starting the beef with Drake, and his response was honest. “My intent was to always keep, I think from day one, was to always keep the nature of it as a sport,” he said. “I don’t care how mother fuckers look at it as a collaborative effort, you know, that’s cool too, but I love when artists grit their teeth. Like, I still watch battle raps […] This has always been the core definition of who I am, and it’s been that way since day one.”
Has music gotten too nice? Lamar might have a point. It’s hard to make a living in music these days, and therefore, a lot of people, the moment they are making enough money to call music their profession, are just happy to be a part of the industry. It feels as though the drive to be the very best out there doesn’t exist anymore, as artists don’t have rivalries.
I’m not saying artists should constantly hate one another and be looking for ways to fuck each other over, but there is no escaping the music which has come from Lamar and Drake’s beef, paired with the shows they have done afterwards, have given hip-hop a much-needed injection of venom. People want to be the best again, there is rivalry, and people don’t mind taking others down in their scramble to the top. When artists treat music as a sport, they constantly push themselves to excel in what they create.
Drake and Lamar aren’t the only examples of artists who make their most acclaimed work in the heat of rivalry. The Beatles and The Beach Boys famously were in competition with one another. Granted, it might not have been as aggressive as Lamar and Drake’s beef, but it was enough for them to want to one-up each other, and it led to some of the greatest music ever made.
Can you imagine a world where Pet Sounds doesn’t exist? Courtney Love once admitted that the vocal performance on the song ‘God Only Knows’ is proof of the existence of a higher power, but it’s actually the by-product of a musician seeing his competition and wanting to be better than them. It’s rivalry, a sport, and something that should be celebrated instead of shunned.
Other famous rivalries in music that have spawned great music include John Lennon and Paul McCartney once The Beatles split, not to mention the memorable moments that came from Oasis and Blur going toe-to-toe in the noughties. When there is rivalry in music, not only do artists feel the need to push themselves more, but listeners are more engaged with the art produced.
Rivalry needs to be done in moderation. Collaborations in music are also a good thing, and they’ll cease to exist if everyone is constantly being hostile to one another, but would it be such a bad thing to see artists gritting their teeth a bit more? If they think they deserve more acclaim, they should say it and be given the chance to prove it. We should see more creatives go against one another in a bid to be considered the greatest of all time.
Some of the best music comes from a place of competition, and memorable moments also result from two minds going head to head. Artists, stop being polite and bring back rivalry.
