Featured Image Credit: rince Williams/Wireimage
Topics: Drake, Kendrick Lamar, Super Bowl
Michael Slavin
Topics: Drake, Kendrick Lamar, Super Bowl
Drake issued a statement addressing the 'certified p***ophile' diss from Kendrick Lamar's 'Not Like Us', performed for millions at the Super Bowl.
Drake is currently in the midst of a lawsuit with the Universal Music Group (UMG) who he accuses of artificially inflating the streams on the record as well as defamation.
He said in a statement issued via lawyers prior to the song playing in the half-time show of this year's Super Bowl: "UMG is masquerading as a champion of artistic 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.”
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Though both Lamar and Drake were close friends for many years, sharing several songs together a slow drift between them exploded last year.
Lamar and Drake engaged in a heated rap beef originating from a Kendrick Lamar verse on Future's 'Like That' in which he took shots at Drake and J Cole over suggestions they were in a rap 'big 3' with him.
This spiralled to Drake accusing Lamar of covering up domestic abuse allegations in one diss track and Lamar penning a song to Drake's parents and child in which he said Drake 'should die'.
The beef ultimately ended with 'Not Like Us', in which Lamar said the now famous line 'Certified Loverboy, Certified 'p***phile'... trying to strike a chord and it's probably a Minor."
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The song led to Lamar winning five Grammys, including record of the year, and performed at last night's Super Bowl.
While some questioned whether Lamar would perform the song during the halftime show, he ended up looking directly down the barrel of the camera to rap 'say Drake I hear you like em young.'
In addition to this, the Compton rapper brought out Serena Williams, someone long-rumoured to have dated Drake, against whom the Toronto rapper has put several references into his work.
One viewer said of the performance: "Kendrick Lamar performing “Not Like Us” and calling Drake a p*do in front of 100M viewers live at the Super Bowl is going down in history".
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Though Kendrick Lamar is not named in the lawsuit against UMG, it states that the allegations made against Drake are unfounded.
UMG previously released a statement regarding Drake's allegations against them: "Not only are these claims untrue, but the notion that we would seek to harm the reputation of any artist—let alone Drake—is illogical.
"We have invested massively in his music and our employees around the world have worked tirelessly for many years to help him achieve historic commercial and personal financial success.
"Throughout his career, Drake has intentionally and successfully used UMG to distribute his music and poetry to engage in conventionally outrageous back-and-forth 'rap battles' to express his feelings about other artists.
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"He now seeks to weaponize the legal process to silence an artist's creative expression and to seek damages from [Universal] for distributing that artist's music."
UMG represent both Drake and Kendrick Lamar.
Donald Trump became the first sitting president to attend a Super Bowl yesterday, but fans couldn't make out if the POTUS was met with cheers or boos.
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The camera panned to the 78-year-old during Jon Batiste's rendition of the national anthem.
One fan wondered: "Did they cheer or boo Trump? Difficult to tell."
While Trump seemed to be met with a mixed reaction, Swift was met with an overwhelming negative reception when she turned up to support her boyfriend Travis Kelce.
When her face appeared on screen at New Orleans' Caesars Superdome, she appeared to say: "What's going on?" as the crowd jeered her.
Trump, meanwhile, rubbed salt in the wound on Truth Social, writing: "The only one that had a tougher night than the Kansas City Chiefs was Taylor Swift. She got BOOED out of the Stadium. MAGA is very unforgiving!"
However, as many social media users pointed out, Swift was never going to go down particularly well in a stadium full of Eagles fans.
Like always, there were some major new movie trailers premiering during the game including Jurassic Park Rebirth, M3GAN 2.0 and Mission Impossible - The Final Reckoning.
By far the most popular though was the new ad for Lilo & Stitch, which saw the adorable little blue alien cause absolute chaos in the Super Bowl stadium.
You can watch it below:
Lamar was also spotted wearing a necklace with a massive 'a' on it, a reference to his brutal 'Not Like Us' quip where he says of Drake and his team: "Tryna strike a chord and it's probably A minor."
Samuel L. Jackson, dressed up as Uncle Sam, also made a surprise appearance as Lamar's emcee. The way he butted in by accusing Lamar of being 'too ghetto' was widely assumed to be a reference to a group of Republicans who wrote a letter to the Greater New Orleans Sports Foundation, demanding Lamar's halftime show not be too 'lewd' or 'offensive'.
One person few people expected to turn up during Kendrick Lamar's set was Serena Williams, with the tennis star doing a 'crip walk' dance at the corner of the stage.
Not only was her appearance significant because she's rumoured to have dated Drake, but she was also widely criticised for doing the same dance at Wimbledon to celebrate winning an Olympic gold medal in 2021. Many said the backlash against her was racist.
Williams wrote after the Super Bowl: "Man, I did not crip walk like that at Wimbledon. Ooh, I would’ve been fined."