To close the rapid-fire set, DJ Mustard ran onstage and threw his arm around Lamar as GNX’s breakout song “TV Off”—and its immediately memed moment of Lamar screaming his name—blasted over the speakers. In perfect sync, the Compton rapper repeated the line “Turn his TV off” right as the stadium, and consequently viewers’ TV screens, went black. The camera zoomed out to show the stage shaped like a tic-tac-toe board with the words “Game over” written with lights in the crowd.
Lamar’s company with Dave Free, pgLang, handled the creative direction for the halftime show performance. Diversified Production Services served as producers for the halftime show telecast with Jay-Z’s Roc Nation and Jesse Collins as executive producers, Hamish Hamilton as director, and Roc Nation acting “as the strategic entertainment advisor of the live performance.”
The halftime show performance arrived on the heels of Lamar’s surprise November album, GNX, and a spate of victories at the 2025 Grammy Awards. Thanks to his smash hit “Not Like Us,” Lamar swept all five categories in which he was nominated: Song and Record of the Year, Best Rap Song, Best Rap Performance, and Best Music Video. That means that “Not Like Us” won as many Grammy Awards (five) as the diss track’s target, Drake, has won in his entire career (five). To rub it in even more, the gala sang along loudly to the song, including its most damning accusation.
The performance also came on the heels of a federal lawsuit that Drake filed against Universal Music Group (UMG) over its promotion of “Not Like Us.” The litigation has led to speculation about whether Lamar would perform the diss song on a huge national stage. A few hours before the halftime show, Drake’s legal team released a new statement about “Not Like Us,” writing: “UMG is masquerading as a champion of artist freedom by calling its actions merely ‘entertainment,’ but there is nothing entertaining about pedophilia or child abuse in the real world. We are confident that the evidence we will ultimately present at trial, including information we’ve already learned and continue to receive since filing the lawsuit, will expose UMG’s gross prioritization of its own corporate profits and executive bonuses over its exclusively signed artists’ well-being and the truth.”
Lamar made his Super Bowl halftime show debut, in 2022, in Inglewood, California. He was among several performers that night, as Dr. Dre, Snoop Dogg, Eminem, 50 Cent, Anderson .Paak, and Mary J. Blige also participated in the SoFi Stadium show.
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