Sorry, Old White People: Kendrick Lamar's Halftime Show Was a Hit

Post Superbowl Spotify data shows the daily streams for Lamar's biggest tunes almost tripled compared to the previous week's daily streams.

I have bad news for that demographic who took to Facebook in anger to assert their negative assessment of Kendrick Lamar’s Superbowl LIX performance.

Based on actual behavioral data, Lamar’s performance was a smash.

The TV ratings show Lamar’s performance was the most watched halftime show ever. However, did Kendrick Lamar’s appearance with Samuel L. Jackson’s Uncle Sam, Serena Williams, Mustard, and SZA inspire fans to listen to more of Lamar’s music afterwords? If it did, his performance not only attracted an audience, it inspired an audience.

According to America’s 83 million Spotify users, the answer is, “yes.”

The chart below shows the total number of streams each day for songs by (or featuring) Kendrick Lamar among Spotify’s 200 most streamed songs. On Monday, February 10th, Lamar’s streams for the day jumped to over 33 million. That’s 235% compared to the previous day, Superbowl Sunday. His number of songs in the Spotify 200 also doubled Monday compared to the previous week’s daily average.

Let’s dive in to which specific songs benefited most from Lamar’s performance. The chart below examines Kendrick Lamar’s most relevant hits in the Spotify 200, comparing each song’s average daily streams for the week prior to the big game (Saturday, February 1st through Friday, February 7th) with streams on Monday, February 10th:

Three trends emerge:

#1: Kendrick Lamar’s biggest hits saw the greatest jumps: “Not like us” jumped almost four times. “All The Stars” featuring fellow halftime performer SZA jumped almost three-and-a-half times. 2017’s “HUMBLE” saw its daily streams more than triple for Super Monday.

#2: The biggest songs from Lamar’s GNX saw impressive bumps: “Luther”, “tv off”, and “squabble up” all more than doubled their streams on Super Monday compared to their daily average the previous week. “peekaboo,” which is more of an album cut than a traditional hit, almost tripled its daily streams after being a part of the halftime set list.

#3: Songs merely featuring Kendrick Lamar received the smallest hike: SZA’s “30 for 30” featuring Lamar merely doubled its daily streams Monday, while Baby Keem’s “Family Ties” only jumped 57 percent compared to last week’s daily average. (Most artists would love to see their daily streams jump only 57%.)

“But those streaming increases didn’t stick, right?”

Let’s now add Tuesday:

Some of the deepest album cuts from GNX saw slightly fewer streams on Tuesday, bringing down Lamar’s overall total stream count on Tuesday’s Spotify 200 compared to Monday.

Several songs—including two songs featuring SZA—actually garnered more streams on Tuesday than on Super Monday.

In addition to those lesser-played album cuts, some bigger songs did slip slightly on Tuesday compared to Monday. Those songs include “Not Like Us,” which already peaked last year, and “squabble up,” which as I’ve noted in The Hit Momentum Report for professional pop programmers, has performed more poorly than other releases from GNX.

So yes, Kendrick Lamar’s halftime performance inspired a significant increase in listening to his music afterwards—meaning it didn’t merely attract an audience, it captivated a significant number of those Americans who experienced it.

Granted, you may have personally preferred Luke Combs, Taylor Swift, or The Rolling Stones.

And yes, there are artists with broader demographic appeal than Kendrick Lamar.

But if you still believe the actual music consumption of America’s 83 million Spotify users is meaningless compared to your personal assessment of pop culture, here’s a halftime spectacular aimed squarely at you:

Data source for this post: Spotify Charts (days of 2/1/2025 through 2/11/2025 for the USA): https://charts.spotify.com/charts/overview/us