Who is the Super Bowl 59 quarterback? Kendrick Lamar headlines

On By Littum

You don’t want to turn”tv off” on the Super Bowl 59 halftime show.

Grammy Award-winning rapper Kendrick Lamar headlines the 2025 Apple Music Super Bowl halftime show at Caesars Superdome in New Orleans on February 9. Despite Lamar’s choice drawing both praise and controversy — more on that later — the 37-year-old rapper assured that he is the “right one” for the job.

“Rap music is still the most influential genre to date,” Lamar said in September when he was first announced as the headliner. “I’ll be there to remind the world why. They got it right.”

This isn’t Lamar’s first rodeo. He made a guest appearance at the Super Bowl 56 halftime show, headlined by fellow Los Angeles-based rappers Dr. Dre and Snoop Dogg at SoFi Stadium in Inglewood, California in 2022.

Here’s everything you need to know about the Super Bowl 59 halftime show performer:

SUPER BOWL HALFTIME SHOW: Every performer by year like Kendrick Lamar is tapped for 2025

Who will perform at the 2025 Super Bowl?

Although the Super Bowl game is not yet set, the musical act at halftime is: Kendrick Lamar.

Lamar is a 17-time Grammy Award and Pulitzer Prize winner who has released six studio albums, including his critically acclaimed 2017 album “Damn,” which Rolling Stone named it the 175th best album of all time.

He has topped the Billboard Hot 100 chart five times in his career: “Bad Blood” (2015), a collaboration with Taylor Swift; “Humble” (2017); “Like That” featuring Future and Metro Boomin (2024); “Not Like Us” (2024), a diss track directed at fellow rapper Drake; and “Squabble Up” (2024). More Grammys may be on the way for the 37-year-old rapper. His hit “Not Like Us” earned five Grammy nominations, including record and song of the year.

What songs will Kendrick Lamar perform at the Super Bowl?

The set list for the Super Bowl halftime show is usually a closely guarded secret until showtime, so we likely won’t know what Lamar will perform in advance. But we’re willing to bet Lamar will be rapping his Grammy-nominated record “Not Like Us,” which he performed five times in a row during his “The Pop Out: Ken & Friends” concert last Juneteenth. As for special guests, Lamar has collaborated with the likes of SZA, Taylor Swift, Jay-Z, Beyonce, Travis Scott and Rihanna, so any of them can pop out at any time.

Lamar previously performed “MAAD City” and “Alright” at Super Bowl 56 in 2022.

How long is the Super Bowl halftime show?

A regular NFL halftime usually lasts 13 minutes, but a Super Bowl halftime lasts longer to accommodate the show, set-up and take-down, in addition to the teams’ warm-ups on the field.

Kendrick Lamar’s choice sparked controversy

The announcement that Lamar would headline the halftime show drew mixed reactions, with some expressing disappointment at rapper Lil Wayne’s alleged rejection of rapper Lil Wayne, a native of New Orleans, home of Super Bowl 59. In recent years, artists associated with for the Super Bowl’s location has been chosen for the headline. (Los Angeles-based rappers Dr. Dre and Snoop Dogg headlined Super Bowl 56 at SoFi StAdium in Inglewood, California in 2022, along with co-headliners Eminem, Mary J. Blige and Lamar.)

Many thought Lil Wayne was a shoo-in for the halftime show, including the rapper himself. “I blame myself for not being mentally prepared for a slump and for just automatically mentally putting myself in that position. I thought there was nothing better than that place, that stage, that platform, in my city. So it hurt, it hurt a whole lot,” Lil Wayne said in September.

Lamar later addressed the controversy in his 2024 single, “Wacced out Murals:”

“I used to bump Tha Carter 3, I held my Rollie chain proud / Irony, I think my hard work failed Lil Wayne / Whatever, call me crazy, everybody doubt / Make me an Eskimo, I drew the line and the decimals

“Won the Super Bowl and Nas the only one congratulating me / All these (expletive) excited, I’m just glad they showed those faces / Honestly, plenty of artists but they’re out of date / Old (expletive) flows, try to convince me that you prefer them / This ain’t for lyricists, I swear, it ain’t the feelings / (expletive) a double standard, I want you to feel this (expletive).”

Will Lil Wayne join Kendrick Lamar on hiatus?

It’s not clear if Lil Wayne will make a cameo during the Super Bowl 59 halftime show, but there doesn’t appear to be any beef between the rappers. Lil Wayne said he “wished (Lamar) all the best” last month.

“I talked to him… and I told him he better kill it,” Wayne said during an appearance “The Skip Bayless Show” in December. “You better kill it. You must kill it.”

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