Serena Williams might have moved on to greener pastures with Alexis Ohanian. But Sunday night, when Kendrick Lamar performed Not Like Us, his diss track aimed at Drake, the 23-time Grand Slam champion couldn’t resist an opportunity to kick her ex when he was down.
Williams made a surprise cameo doing her Crip Walk dance (which she infamously did after winning matches at the Olympics and Wimbledon) as Lamar played the insult-laden song (which includes the line, “better not speak on Serena”) that was the final word in a months-long feud with the Toronto rapper.
Ohanian co-signed his wife’s appearance, calling Lamar’s set a “Pretty fantastic halftime show.”
When she performed the dance at Wimbledon more than a decade ago, it caused controversy because of its associations with gang culture in Los Angeles (her older half-sister Yetunde Price was killed by a member of the Crips in a drive-by shooting in 2003).
At the time, Williams dismissed the controversy saying it was “just a dance.”
In a video shared to X after Lamar’s halftime show, she quipped of her moves, “Man, I did not crip walk like that at Wimbledon. I would be fined!”
Although the two never publicly admitted they dated, last year, Drake revealed his 2016 song Too Good was inspired by his relationship with Williams.
“I’m too good to you / I’m way too good to you / You take my love for granted / I just don’t understand it,” he sings on the track, which featured another one of his exes, Rihanna.
After the rapper released 100 Gigs — a website that contained archival footage and unreleased songs — he admitted that the song was “about me and Serena” in a clip that was widely shared to social media.
“It’s funny because when I make songs about women, I also make songs for them. So, I know what kind of song to make. If I’m gonna talk about them, I’ll at least do them the justice of making them a song that they’ll like,” Drake says in the video. “I know Serena very well, and I know that she’ll hear it loud and clear, but not hate me for it because it’s lighthearted.”
Drake also took a shot at Ohanian on his 2022 track Middle of the Ocean in which he called the Reddit co-founder a “groupie.” In response, Ohanian said he was “the best groupie for my wife and daughter” and Williams added a string of loved-up emojis to her husband’s response.
That Lamar played Not Like Us didn’t come as much of a surprise. The Sunday prior, the Compton emcee took home five Grammys for the single and had the entire crowd at the Crypto.com Arena, including Taylor Swift, dancing to the song and belting out some of its most offensive lyrics.
“I wanna play their favourite song but you know they love to sue,” Lamar teased early on in his 13-minute set, referencing Drake’s lawsuit against Universal Music Group, who he has accused of inflating the song’s popularity and fanning Pulitzer Prize-winning rapper’s unproven pedophilia accusations.
Lamar removed the “pedophile” dig when he eventually got around to singing Not Like Us in front of the crowd at Caesars Superdome, but that didn’t stop viewers at home from reacting when he looked directly into the camera and sang the lyrics, “Say Drake, I hear you like ‘em young.” Later, as he rapped the line “better not speak on Serena,” the camera switched to Williams’ Crip walking dance. At another point in the incendiary song, the crowd chimed in loudly during Lamar’s brutal dig at Drake’s songwriting (“Tryna strike a cord and it’s probably A Minor”).
“Kendrick getting the entire Super Bowl screaming ‘A Minor’ with Serena Williams dancing has to feel like a shotgun blast to Drake’s chest,” one person wrote on X, with another adding, “Drake watching Serena his ex Crip Walking to a viral diss song about him — that’s legendary.”
“Every time I watch Kendrick I get inspired to be a bigger hater,” a third person wrote “Him having Serena Williams dancing to a diss track of Drake knowing Serena history with Drake is diabolical. Truly inspiring stuff.”
Williams herself spoke out on the beef between the two stars — which played out last spring and saw the rappers trading insults in dueling songs.
“If I’ve learned anything this year, it’s that none of us, not a single one of us, not even me, should ever pick a fight with Kendrick Lamar,” she said at the ESPY Awards. “He will make your hometown not like you. The next time Drake sits courtside at a Raptors game, they’re going to Forrest Gump him. Seats taken.”