Dave Free says Kendrick Lamar didn't intend to perform his biggest hits with his Super Bowl Halftime Show on Sunday. The pgLang co-founder spoke with The Wall Street Journal for a new interview about the polarizing event published on Monday.
“We wanted this performance to have a cinematic and theatrical element to it. We can confidently say that there’s no Super Bowl performance that’s quite like this one,” he said. He also noted that Beyoncé, Prince and Michael Jackson served as major influences on how they prepared the event. “The feel of it is Black America. What does Black America look like, and how to control that narrative of what it means to be Black in America versus what the world’s perspective of that is," he added.
Kendrick Lamar's Super Bowl Setlist
Dave Free also addressed fans' complaints about Lamar not playing many of the biggest songs from throughout his career. “It wasn’t about playing the hits," he said. Instead, Lamar played mostly songs from his newest record, GNX, as well as Damn. The setlist included "Squabble Up," "Humble," "DNA," "Euphoria," "Man at the Garden," "Peekaboo," "Luther," "All the Stars," and "Not Like Us," before finishing with "TV Off." He also used him time on stage to diss Drake at multiple points. “I want to perform their favorite song… but you know they love to sue," he joked before launching into "Not Like Us." The remark was a reference to the Toronto rapper taking legal action against Universal Music Group over the diss track.
In addition to SZA and Mustard, Lamar also welcomed Serena Williams to the stage. She is rumored to have briefly dated Drake back in the 2010s. Drake is currently traveling across Australia on his Anita Max Win Tour. He resurfaced on social media on Tuesday, sharing several posts on his "plottttwistttttt" Instagram page. One of them appears like it could be a dig at Williams.
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