Despite taking the stage for what is traditionally the most-viewed television event of the year on Sunday night (Feb. 9), SZA said she wasn’t nervous before joining Kendrick Lamar for the Super Bowl LIX halftime show.
“THANK YOU @kendricklamar for consistently putting the world on your back . At all times . Thank you for lifting me up . Thank you for encouraging me and being so willing to bend to whatever I may need,” SZA wrote on Instagram early Monday morning (Feb. 10) alongside a series of pics and videos from the pair’s pioneering set, which marked the first time a solo rapper has headlined the Super Bowl.
“Thank you to your incredible team and mine ! You’re a prophet . But you knew that,” SZA said of the Pulitzer Prize winning Lamar, who Billboard‘s Damien Scott praised for bringing an “unfiltered hip-hop show” to the big game in style. SZA continued, “I wasn’t nervous today . I was ready to rep for u. For US . Thank you God ,Dot, and the NFL for this opportunity #SUPERBOWL2025 wrapped.”
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The “Kill Bill” singer’s post ended with images of her hopping on a private jet and having a celebratory meal of chicken and mac and cheese and chilling out with her dog.
Lamar’s intense set at the Caesars Superdome in the midst of what turned out to be a blow-out 40-22 win by the Philadelphia Eagles over reigning champs the Kansas City Chiefs featured an intro from actor Samuel L. Jackson (aka “Uncle Sam”), an opening verse from an unreleased song as well as the recent Billboard Hot 100 No. 1 hit “Squabble Up.” Lamar then stepped through a set that included such fan favorites as “Humble,” “DNA,” “Euphoria,” “Man at the Garden” and “Peekaboo” before being joined by SZA for the GNX track “Luther” and “All the Stars” from the Black Panther soundtrack.
The set ended, of course, with the expected roll-out of K-Dot’s vicious, beef-ending, Grammy-winning Drake attack track “Not Like Us,” during which Lamar eschewed the legally tricky line “certified pedophile,” but left in “tryna strike a chord and it’s probably A minor.”
