How ‘Not Like Us’ turned Kendrick Lamar into a Super Bowl halftime show headliner

nypost.com:

Kendrick Lamar to be the 2025 Super Bowl halftime show headliner.In fact, it seemed as if his moment to play the biggest stage in the game had already come and gone in 2022’s Dr.

Dre-led hip-hop extravaganza also featuring Eminem, Mary J. Blige, Snoop Dogg and 50 Cent.And Lamar’s career had seemingly peaked with 2017’s “Humble,” his first solo No.

1 single, and its critically acclaimed album “Damn,” which led to his Pulitzer Prize in 2018.“He was in what I would maybe frame as a midlife lull, a midcareer doldrum,” Christopher Driscoll, co-author of 2019’s “Kendrick Lamar and the Making of Black Meaning,” told The Post. “You know, the wind had stopped … ‘Mr.

Morale [and the Big Steppers,’ Lamar’s 2022 album] was a welcome offering from him. But it wasn’t ‘Damn,’ you know? It just didn’t have the same sort of resonance.”But damn if Lamar hasn’t now scored the most prized gig in the biz as the first solo rapper to headline the Super Bowl when the Kansas City Chiefs tackle the Philadelphia Eagles at the Caesars Superdome in New Orleans on Sunday.