Kendrick Lamar’s crowd-pleasing Tremendous Bowl halftime present definitely made viewers wish to take heed to extra of the rapper’s music as his Spotify listenership elevated drastically after Sunday night time’s efficiency.
The Grammy Award-winning rapper’s diss track-turned-cultural second “Not Like Us” had his greatest increase of the night time with a rise of 430 p.c within the three hours following Lamar’s halftime efficiency, the streamer stated Monday morning.
The music was one in every of many to see renewed curiosity: Lamar’s streaming general jumped by 175 p.c. “Humble” noticed a rise of 300 p.c, whereas his duet with SZA, “All of the Stars,” jumped 290 p.c. SZA herself expertise an 80 p.c improve in streaming numbers.
The GNX rapper carried out a number of of his current hits, together with “squabble up,” “DNA,” “euphoria,” “man on the backyard,” “peakboo,” “luther” and “television off.” Through the efficiency, Lamar teased that he needed to “play their favourite music, however you understand they like to sue” — a reference to the Drake diss monitor “Not Like Us” and the present lawsuits surrounding the music. He determined towards it within the second, as a substitute slowing it down and brining out Grammy Award-winning singer SZA earlier than ultimately going again to the music.
Followers had been speculating whether or not or not Lamar would carry out “Not Like Us” throughout the NFL’s greatest stage. The critically acclaimed music, launched amid an ongoing feud with rapper Drake, is one in every of a number of diss tracks the rapper launched towards the Licensed Lover Boy artist, together with “euphoria,” which he additionally carried out.
Sticking to the music’s unique lyrics, Lamar referred to as out Drake by identify. He noticeably passed over using “pedophiles” within the music however had all the stadium screaming “tryna ring a bell and it’s most likely A minor” at full quantity.
“Not Like Us” was one in every of 2024’s greatest hits, spending two weeks atop the Billboard Sizzling 100 and 20 weeks at No. 1 on the Sizzling Rap Songs chart. The music gained all 5 of the Grammy Awards for which it was nominated, together with music and report of the yr, transcending a easy diss monitor and turning into a global and cultural anthem. The music not too long ago crossed greater than a billion streams on Spotify and was inducted into the streamer’s Billions Membership.
“Not Like Us” is on the middle of a defamation go well with from Drake towards Common Music Group, the mum or dad report label to which he and Lamar are each signed. The brand new lawsuit claimed UMG “accepted, revealed and launched a marketing campaign to create a viral hit out of a rap monitor” that was “supposed to convey the precise, unmistakable and false factual allegation that Drake is a legal pedophile, and to recommend that the general public ought to resort to vigilante justice in response.”
In November, Drake’s Frozen Moments firm filed a petition in a New York courtroom alleging that UMG “launched a marketing campaign to control and saturate the streaming providers and airwaves with a music, ‘Not Like Us,’ with a view to make that music go viral, together with through the use of ‘bots’ and pay-to-play agreements.” Each Spotify and UMG refuted the claims, with the report label saying the allegations have been “offensive and unfaithful.”
“UMG and Spotify have by no means had any association through which UMG charged Spotify licensing charges 30 p.c decrease than its normal licensing charges for ‘Not Like Us’ in trade for Spotify affirmatively recommending [‘Not Like Us’], together with ‘to customers who’re trying to find different songs and artists,’” the streamer stated in a press release following the petition.
