Kendrick Lamar Responds To Drake In Super Bowl Announcement: "No Round 2s"

BYGabriel Bras Nevares66.5K Views
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British Summer Time Festival - Florence And The Machine
LONDON, ENGLAND - JULY 02: Kendrick Lamar performs as part of British Summer Time Festival at Hyde Park on July 2, 2016 in London, England. (Photo by Samir Hussein/Redferns/Getty Images)
Kendrick doesn't need the rematch.

For the umpteenth time in 2024, Kendrick Lamar has stopped the hip-hop world in its tracks. He just announced on Sunday (September 8) that he will be the headlining act at the Super Bowl LIX halftime show in New Orleans on February 9, 2025. In his announcement video, K.Dot even made a cheeky and downright dismissive reference to his victory in the Drake battle that raged on just a few months ago. "You know it's only one opportunity to win a championship. No round two's," he says at one point in the video linked in the post below. This, of course, electrified a lot of fans, whether they are Kendrick fans or not.

Furthermore, this "Round 2" reference is about Drake's recent IG burner post about "winning Game 2," which many took as a direct reference to the Kendrick Lamar battle. We don't know what he actually meant by this, though, as a "Game 2" can mean many different things. Does the 6ix God actually plan on lyrically battling the Compton rapper again or is this more of a symbolic flex about career longevity and commercial success? After all, anyone who truly thought that the OVO mogul's career would be over after this beef is delusional.

Kendrick Lamar's Super Bowl Announcement

With all this feud discourse in mind, you can already imagine the kind of criticisms and praises that Kendrick Lamar and Drake fans are throwing out in reaction to this. When one fan gets excited about Kendrick stomping on Drizzy for the millionth time, another fan thinks that "Not Like Us" is Mr. Syrup Sandwiches' only big hit. Nevertheless, this adds to some other teases about the former TDE lyricist's next moves, including a possible future collab with Playboi Carti. Don't get your hopes up, though: that's still purely speculative as of writing this article.

Meanwhile, we can't wait to see what Kendrick Lamar brings to the Super Bowl halftime show next year, especially as this suggests that he might drop something to pair with it. But that wasn't the case for Rihanna, so let's not get our hopes up. In any case, this should definitely mitigate some of the lost momentum that some people attributed to his tardiness. Whether or not any of this actually relates back to the Drake battle remains a mystery, as this announcement suggests that The Boy will be yapping to a brick wall if he tries to re-engage.

About The Author
Gabriel Bras Nevares is a staff writer for HotNewHipHop. He joined HNHH while completing his B.A. in Journalism & Mass Communication at The George Washington University in the summer of 2022. Born and raised in San Juan, Puerto Rico, Gabriel treasures the crossover between his native reggaetón and hip-hop news coverage, such as his review for Bad Bunny’s hometown concert in 2024. But more specifically, he digs for the deeper side of hip-hop conversations, whether that’s the “death” of the genre in 2023, the lyrical and parasocial intricacies of the Kendrick Lamar and Drake battle, or the many moving parts of the Young Thug and YSL RICO case. Beyond engaging and breaking news coverage, Gabriel makes the most out of his concert obsessions, reviewing and recapping festivals like Rolling Loud Miami and Camp Flog Gnaw. He’s also developed a strong editorial voice through album reviews, think-pieces, and interviews with some of the genre’s brightest upstarts and most enduring obscured gems like Homeboy Sandman, Bktherula, Bas, and Devin Malik.
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