From his political jabs to his surprise A-list guests, Kendrick Lamar’s performance at the Super Bowl Halftime Show has been dominating the conversation ever since he took to the pitch on Sunday night.
But there’s one particular part of his performance that’s really captured people’s imaginations over on social media.
Towards the end of his 13-minute medley, the Grammy winner began teasing a rendition of his hit song Not Like Us, an unabashed diss track aimed at fellow rapper Drake.
In the end, Not Like Us served as the closer during Kendrick’s Super Bowl set, and included one moment where he addressed his rival directly.
When he reached the line that begins “say, Drake…”, Kendrick not only turned to deliver the lyric straight down the barrel of the camera, but also delivered a killer smile while he did it.
And this is the moment fans have been sharing their own takes on ever since…
Not Like Us premiered in May 2024, at a time when Kendrick and Drake had already become embroiled in a highly-publicised feud, with plenty of diss tracks released between them in a short space of time.
Six months later, Drake filed a lawsuit against both Universal Music Group (UMG) and Spotify, accusing them of pushing the song to appear more popular than it actually was.
UMG responded to say these allegations were “offensive and untrue”, with Drake then filing a second lawsuit against the music corporation, this time for defamation, for failing to prevent the release of a song in which he is “falsely [accused] of being a sex offender”.
Ahead of Kendrick’s Super Bowl performance, Drake’s legal team released a statement which said: “UMG is masquerading as a champion of artistic freedom by calling its actions merely ‘entertainment’, but there is nothing entertaining about pedophilia or child abuse in the real world.
Kendrick made light of the legal drama during his Super Bowl performance, declaring at one point: “I wanna do they favourite song, but they love to sue.”