Ranking Kendrick Lamar’s Super Bowl LIX Easter Eggs By Their Level of Impact

Indie rap fans watching from home quickly noted that the intro to Kendrick’s performance began with an instrumental version of Ghais Guevara’s “The Old Guard is Dead,” a track from his newly released album Goyard Ibn Said.

Guevara is from Philadelphia, which may explain some of the connection and decision-making behind the soundtrack choice. But he is still a relatively obscure artist and the song title may also lend some insight into why that song was chosen. Kendrick’s performance signaled a new era in rap and culture, and what better way to signify that shift than to announce the death of the old guard? And in this world that old guard is Drake.

We ranked it at 10 because it was a very cool moment for the underground rap community. But it’s unclear whether Kendrick has enough influence to dictate production choices for the TV broadcast.

Kendrick Lamar began his highly anticipated show with a wildly unexpected move, kicking things off with the unreleased GNX teaser, “Bodies.”

Amongst Easter eggs, this is among the hardest to decipher. It’s widely acknowledged that much of the context regarding GNX is as a victory lap for Kendrick, a way to dance on Drake’s grave one more time. What’s the significance behind kicking off the celebration with a song very few people—outside of K.Dot devotees—have heard? For one, there’s a line at the end of the song where Kendrick raps: “‘Member I said, ‘I’m the greatest,’ back when you debated the number one and number two?/ Topic was always hilarious to me, you carried ’em to me.”

Drake’s obsession over his status in rap merely made everyone realize that Kendrick was the industry godfather all along, the line seems to suggest. Additionally, the imagery of body after body emerging from the car on stage during this introduction may suggest that Kendrick has tons of unreleased music ready to be unleashed, just like “Bodies.” A slightly crazier read? There are more Drake skeletons in the closet and Kendrick is ready to unleash them. What we thought was the end of an era may simply be a new beginning.

While this close reading might be a stretch, it’s never beyond the realm of possibility with Kendrick. Even when we’re playing chess, he’s playing some other game for which we haven’t even comprehended the rules.

Still, we have this low because the idea that Kendrick has more music ready to drop this year is hard to fathom, especially with the Grand National Tour tour getting ready to start in a couple of months.

It starts with the lower-case “a” chain. This is obviously supposed to represent the pgLang logo but can also be a clever signal to the “a minor” line in “Not Like Us.”

But other parts of his outfit were harder to decipher. What about his flare-bottom, bootcut Celine jeans? Yeah, they cost $1,300, but was there any deeper meaning behind them? Some are speculating that K.Dot wanted to destroy Drake while wearing the silliest pants possible, while others suggested that Kendrick showed he could get away with anything now.

Additionally, his pgLang jacket featured the word “Gloria,” a nickname Kendrick uses for his pen game. This choice seems to suggest that the thing that carried Kendrick to this point, the foundation of his career, is the strength of his lyricism.

Since Kendrick Lamar paid homage to 2Pac at the pop out last year, there’s been a growing fascination with what his outfit is trying to convey. At times, it feels a bit overblown. This feels like one of those times. Ultimately, Kendrick’s just a guy who likes to get fly.

Kendrick’s decision to play “All The Stars,” a collaboration with SZA from the Black Panther soundtrack, was interesting, considering it was one of the older songs played. But as Hearing Things pointed out, the song took on new meaning in the context of his beef with Drake. Perhaps the song reflected K.Dot’s true feelings about Drizzy even way back when.

On the track, Kendrick raps: “Tell me what you gon’ do to me / Confrontation ain’t nothin’ new to me / You can bring a bullet, bring a sword, bring a morgue / But you can’t bring the truth to me.” He then adds, “I hate those that feel entitled,” before concluding, “I don’t even like you.”

Could Kendrick have performed the song as a subtle critique of Drake’s perceived entitlement—whether to be included in the best rapper conversation or to win the beef, which even escalated to a legal battle? Or perhaps, it’s simply one of his most successful songs, a track that peaked at No. 7 on the Billboard Hot 100.

Samuel L. Jackson’s appearance as “Uncle” Sam Jackson was loaded with imagery, both within the context of Kendrick’s relationship to America and the country’s relationship with football. He began the show by welcoming viewers to “the great American game,” pushing the audience to interrogate their relationship to the violent sport, the corporatization of our nation, and a music genre derived from oppression being used as entertainment. Later, Jackson’s job on-stage was to move Kendrick away from his music that was, “too loud, too unruly, too ghetto,” instead noting that he liked the songs with SZA—more pop-leaning tracks.

In this sense, Jackson represents censorship, white America—and in a bit of a stretch—Drake himself, considering the artist was allegedly trying to censor via his UMG lawsuit.

The Uncle Sam iconography isn’t new to Kendrick. Many fans were quick to point out that the prototypical symbol of patriotism appeared in Kendrick’s video for “For Free?” and “Wesley’s Theory,” both from To Pimp A Butterfly. That project is widely considered K.Dot’s most overtly political work, which he didn’t perform any songs from during the Super Bowl.

The idea of Kendrick performing in dialogue with his own discography is spot on and pretty consistent with his career. So this is a pretty cool Easter Egg.

Before performing “Not Like Us,” K.Dot said:

“They tried to rig the game/ But you can’t fake influence.”

If you’re a rap fan you know the story. Drake levied a lawsuit at Universal Music Group, stating that the streaming numbers for “Not Like Us” were inflated.

Near the middle of his set, Kendrick said: “I want to perform their favorite song, but you know they love to sue.” Both were explicit dismissals of any concerns K.Dot might have had regarding Drake’s legal position, a giant middle-finger to any concern that Kendrick would avoid his Grammy-winning hit because it was held up in a dispute. K.Dot began by teasing that he might not play “Not Like Us,” but later suggested that there was no legal merit to Drizzy’s concerns because there was nothing fake about this influence.

This might be an obvious Easter egg if you’re reading this site, but keep in mind that the performance had over 100 million viewers. So, it’s almost guaranteed that not everyone caught the reference, making it both a funny and clever Easter egg.

Many viewers did a double take when they saw Serena Williams—who, like Kendrick Lamar—hails from Compton, crip-walking to “Not Like Us.” Though the days are far removed, Serena and Drake used to allegedly date. Now, she’s dancing along to the song that turned the rap world against him. There’s more to Serena’s dance move than just a celebration of Drake’s defeat, though. “@notdanilu” wrote on X:

“For those of y’all who weren’t outside, the media tore Serena to shreds for crip walking at Wimbledon. Her coming back to do a dance that references a culture she’s actually a part of, during a live performance criticizing someone for being a culture vulture is *chef’s kiss.*”

With Kendrick, there are always layers.

During the beginning of Kendrick’s performance, he seemed to directly address Drake when he said: “The revolution’s about to be televised. You picked the right time but the wrong guy.” The right time, perhaps, because it culminated in Kendrick Lamar on-stage performing during the Super Bowl halftime show. The wrong time, well, for those same reasons. Kendrick also made the American flag a key piece of symbolism in his performance, which struck a particular note because President Donald Trump—who was obnoxiously vocal about NFL players kneeling during the National Anthem to protest racial injustice—was in attendance.

Some have read that Kendrick is taking the American Flag back for Black America, doing so in front of the entire country — including its Commander in Chief. This was a big point of emphasis in his battle against Drake, particularly taking issue with the way Drake co-opted Black culture when it was convenient for him, and eschewing it when it was not.

Kendrick decided to wrap his performance with one of the most popular songs from GNX, “tv off.” It signaled the end of the show, K.Dot blowing out the candles on his birthday cake. It capped off the “gamification” symbolism of the performance, which featured a stage design that mirrored the PlayStation controller and lights in the crowd that showed a loading bar revving up to 100%.

After his performance, those same audience lights lit up to read “Game Over,” concluding the show, and to a greater extent, the entire beef between him and Drake. The imagery can be read to suggest that this was a battle for the soul of rap in Kendrick’s eyes, and Drake treated it like a game. Kendrick moved his chess pieces onto Drake’s playing field, created a chart-topper, and then performed it at the Super Bowl. Game over.

But there’s also something very literal and visceral about seeing a demonic Kendrick staring directly at the camera, moments after performing his Drake diss, telling people to “turn the TV off.” It might seem like a stretch at first…but it’s also completely plausible.

It was the smile heard ‘round the world, and no, I’m not talking about the creepy actors who were hired to sit behind home plate during baseball games to promote Smile the movie.

Rather, as Kendrick rapped, “Say Drake,” during “Not Like Us,” he looked directly into the camera and grinned. That moment became the defining one of his Super Bowl performance—a grin that underscored Kendrick’s confidence and implied he could play the game even better than Drake.

It’s worth noting that the smile came right after he said his name—something he’s been very deliberate about avoiding. This was intentional, a carefully planned moment to heighten the excitement. After all, what better way to celebrate winning than with a shit-eating grin?