“I want to play their favourite song… but you know they love to sue,” said Kendrick Lamar, a couple of minutes into his Super Bowl half-time show.

Everyone knew what he was referring to. Not Like Us, his brutal takedown of rap rival Drake, was one of last year’s breakout hits, earning one billion streams on Spotify and five Grammy Awards, including song of the year.

But there were questions over whether Lamar would play it – or even could play it – at the Super Bowl, after Drake filed a defamation lawsuit for lyrics that branded him a sexual predator, which he denies.

Lamar leaned into the dilemma, teasing the song over and over during his set, before finally giving the audience what they wanted.

When the song finally played, Kendrick self-censored the most contentious lyric, in which he calls Drake a “certified paedophile”.

But he looked directly into the camera with a mischievous grin as he called out Drake’s name; and left intact the song’s notorious double-entendre: “Tryin’ to strike a chord and it’s probably A minor.”

That lyric echoed around the Caesars Superdome in Louisiana, indicating that no amount of legal action could ever hope to diminish the song’s popularity.

In playing it, Lamar was expected to have reached more than 120 million TV viewers who had tuned in to see the game in which the Philadelphia Eagles defeated the Kansas City Chiefs 40-22 to deny them an unprecedented third straight Super Bowl.

The performance was further heightened by the surprise appearance of tennis star Serena Williams, who performed the Crip Walk – a notorious Los Angeles dance move – as Lamar prowled the stage.

Drake’s lawyers are suing Lamar’s record label Universal Music Group over the track, accusing it of trying to “create a viral hit” out of a song that made “false factual allegations” about the star.

Sunday marked the first time that a solo rapper had headlined the Super Bowl, and Lamar brought an elaborate stage show, full of dancers, fireworks and special guests.

But the rapper’s lyrics have always explored the contradictions between ego and self-doubt, and his Super Bowl set put that conflict in the spotlight.

He performed on a giant noughts and crosses board, flipping between introspective deep cuts (typically staged inside the Xs) and crowd-pleasing chart hits (which took place in the Os).

Actor Samuel L Jackson, dressed as Uncle Sam, acted as emcee – berating Lamar when he became too self-indulgent, and praising his duets with R&B singer SZA.

“That’s what I’m talking about,” Jackson said, after the duo performed All The Stars, a ballad from the soundtrack to Marvel’s Black Panther movie.

“That’s what America wants, nice and calm.”

It was a caricature, critiquing the expectation that Lamar would tone down his act for the TV audience.

“Too loud, too reckless, too ghetto,” scolded Jackson at one point – but Lamar wasn’t prepared to compromise.

“The revolution about to be televised,” he intoned at the top of his set.

“The picked the right time but the wrong guy.”

Mark Savage, Music Correspondent

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