Photo Credit: Kendrick Lamar by Kenny Sun / CC by 2.0
Kendrick Lamar is facing pressure to remove “Not Like Us” from his Super Bowl Halftime setlist. Lamar says he is planning to perform it anyway.
Kendrick Lamar’s halftime show at the upcoming Super Bowl could escalate the ongoing feud between the Compton hero and Toronto native Drake. Sources close to the matter tell Digital Music News that Drake’s legal team is putting pressure on the NFL to keep Lamar from playing one of his biggest songs — the Drake diss track, “Not Like Us.” But K. Dot won’t back down so easily.
“He won’t back down,” says one inside source. “He doesn’t care about what Drake says or what he thinks about the song; it’s a hit. Kendrick won’t be silenced or shut down.”
But Lamar isn’t the one Drake slapped with a massive defamation lawsuit — their shared label Universal Music Group is. According to Drake’s lawsuit, UMG not only dropped the track, but threw him under the bus, orchestrating a plan to help Kendrick land the highly coveted Super Bowl halftime slot and drag Drake’s name through the mud to boot.
“Not Like Us” includes, among other scathing lyrics, allegations of pedophilia, with Lamar rapping, “Certified Lover Boy? Certified pedophile / Say, Drake, I hear you like ‘em young / You better not ever go to cell block one / Tryna strike a chord and it’s probably A-minor.”
Drake launched a petition in November against UMG in state courts in both New York and Texas. The petition included accusations that Spotify and iHeartRadio joined along in UMG’s “illegal scheme” to boost numbers for Kendrick’s killer diss track. Now that petition has escalated to a full-blown lawsuit, which UMG has discounted as ridiculous.
Big names in the rap scene, like artist turned podcast host Joe Budden, have blasted Drake for his decision to get litigious. Rap beefs are often solved in the streets rather than between the legal sheets. But whether the NFL will urge Kendrick not to perform the now-infamous track — and whether he will acquiesce — remains to be seen.