Kendrick Lamar‘s Super Bowl announcement was seemingly laced with a subtle shot at Drake, but it appears the subliminal digs go even deeper.
The promo video, released on Sunday (September 8), shows the Compton rapper running a football practice with an unseen receiver in front of a giant American flag while announcing he’ll be headlining next year’s Super Bowl halftime show in New Orleans
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While fans have already speculated that part of Kendrick’s dialogue in the clip (“You know it’s only one opportunity to win a championship; no round twos”) is a response to a recent video posted by Drake promising victory in “game two,” the visuals themselves may also be a jab at the 6 God.
Some have connected the stars and stripes theme of the clip to a scene from the 1970 film Patton about World War II hero U.S. General George S. Patton.
The scene in question shows Patton, played by George C. Scott, delivering a motivational speech to troops in front of — you guessed it — a giant American flag.
“Men, all this stuff you’ve heard about America not wanting to fight, wanting to stay out the war, is a lot of horse dump. Americans traditionally love to fight. All real Americans love the sting of battle,” says Scott as the military general.
“When you were kids, you all admired the champion model shooter, the fastest runner, the big league ball players, the toughest boxers. Americans love a winner and will not tolerate a loser. Americans play to win all the time. I wouldn’t give a hoot in hell for a man who lost and laughed.”
He adds: “That’s why Americans have never lost and will never lose a war. Because the very thought of losing is hateful to Americans.”
A viral post on X (formerly Twitter) suggested that the stark similarities between the two are no coincidence, reading: “Nah KDot really a menace cause it’s levels to this imagery.”
Potentially uncovering more layers to Kendrick’s video, another user tied the American theme to his previous shots at Drake’s Canadian nationality in their beef: “Kendrick said ‘Tell ’em run to America, they imitate heritage, they can’t imitate this violence.’”
“Diabolical! [crying face emoji],” someone else wrote in response to the apparent revelation, while a fourth person commented: “Everything is calculated.”
While others felt that the Patton connection might be a reach, Kendrick Lamar is no stranger to burying easter eggs in his art.
The music video for his chart-topping diss song “Not Like Us” is littered with digs at Drake — some obvious and some oblique.
As HipHopDX‘s Jeremy Hecht explained in a recent episode of The Bigger Picture, it shows K. Dot smashing open an owl piñata and staring menacingly at a real-life owl in a cage, overt nods to Drizzy’s OVO bird logo, and features a cameo from former Toronto Raptors star DeMar DeRozan, who was namedropped on the song (“I’m glad DeRoz’ came home, y’all didn’t deserve him neither”).
Kendrick’s fiancée Whitney Alford and their two children also appear in the video, an apparent response to Drake’s claims that their relationship is on the rocks and that one of their kids might actually belong to K. Dot’s longtime manager Dave Free.
Elsewhere, the Pulitzer Prize-winner can be seen using his Jedi powers on a Dark Lanes Demo-esque Drake lookalike, mimicking the “L hands” dance that the Toronto native did in a viral video with a young girl and performing precisely 17.5 push-ups (one short of 18).
Kendrick also waves to the camera while smiling and wearing a white tracksuit, which could be a further taunt at Drake who attended Michael Rubin’s Hamptons white party the night the video dropped.
