Kendrick Lamar performs Super Bowl Halftime Show on a PlayStation controller

Kendrick Lamar's Halftime Show at the Super Bowl was perhaps one of the most trending moments. The one that caught every game’s attention was the symbols from the PlayStation controller. As the artist took over, the stage turned into a tic-tac-toe board which revealed various symbols of the controller.

As per the show’s art director, ‘Shelley Rodgers’ who told Wired during an interview, the idea was from Lamar himself. Rodgers said that while she had no idea if it was related to Drake, the singer had a vision. “I think the [video game theme] was symbolic, his way to reach young people. A lot of it is showing his journey, traveling through the American dream,” she said.

The PlayStation-styled buttons were intended to portray the rapper’s life as a video game as per Rodgers which was honestly a great idea to resonate with the audience. Elaborating further on this, creative director Mike Carson revealed that this was done to make it ‘easy to understand’ the story Lamar was aiming to tell.

“Dave Free and Kendrick are really into keeping things clean and minimal. So we went with a monochromatic concrete look and allowed the video game motif to come alive through dialogue, lighting, choreography, and music,” Carson said.

Kendrick Lamar’s Super Bowl performance was inspired by PlayStation and Patapon!

“Each performance space was shaped like a button on a PlayStation-style controller, a performance intended to portray Lamar’s life as the video game Patapon, a game he grew up playing on the PSP."… pic.twitter.com/6EKTJliXN3

— Radec (@realradec) February 10, 2025

Ending Super Bowl Halftime Show with a ‘Game Over’

Wrapping up the performance with ‘Game Over’ was another cherry on top. The finale of his performance also seems to be him addressing the ongoing beef with Drake. Since the release of the diss track ‘Not Like Us’, both rappers are trading blows with things even going legal.

While there wasn’t a full performance of the song at the Super Bowl which is understandable, Lamar did bring a censored verse of the diss track before ending the show.

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Was Sony involved in Kendrick Lamar’s Super Bowl performance?

By the looks of it, Sony wasn’t involved in any way and the entire idea of the gamer life theme was Lamar’s, brought to life with some talented people. The PlayStation controller was also not mentioned but the controller symbols were enough to send the message to the masses.