The Mudcat Café TM
Thread #173875 Message #4216991
Posted By: Stilly River Sage
10-Feb-25 - 11:57 AM
Thread Name: Lyr Add: Not Like Us
Subject: RE: Lyr Add: Not Like Us
Not gibberish. Extremely topical. Kendrick Lamar Uses His Super Bowl Halftime Show to Settle a Vendetta The first rapper to headline the N.F.L.’s biggest stage solo made his Drake diss “Not Like Us” the centerpiece of his set at the expense of a larger statement. (sez the NYT reviewer - but the set WAS the larger statement)
And then, that smile. What a smile. His subsequent performance was jubilant and a bit naughty. When he rapped, “Say, Drake, I hear you like ’em young,” he looked hard into the camera while motioning downward with his left hand, as if patting the head of a child. He rapped the line naming Drake’s associates and their flaws. Given what the song contends about Drake — it refers to him as a “certified pedophile,” among other things — the decision to perform it was almost certainly heavily prelitigated. (Drake has sued the record label behind both rappers for defamation for releasing and promoting the track.) And there were concessions made: Lamar did not rap the word “pedophile,” replacing it with a prerecorded scream, and the camera switched away from him just before he landed the end of the sing-songy punchline, “A minorrrrrrr.”