Seeing Serena Williams pop up as a particular visitor throughout Kendrick Lamar’s 2025 Tremendous Bowl Halftime Present efficiency could have caught lots of people unexpectedly. However, in case you’re tapped in with the tradition and the historical past—then it actually shouldn’t have.
Whereas Williams and Lamar don’t have a private historical past, they share a typical enemy (or hater): Drake. In truth, the tie between the three of them goes again greater than a decade and options some main milestones—all of which led as much as Sunday’s hearth efficiency which in the end served as a “get again” for each the Compton natives. Don’t fear, we’ll clarify.
2011-2015: Drake and Serena are Romantically Concerned
Issues all began again in 2011 when preliminary stories have been popping out that Williams and Drake have been relationship. Whereas the 2 by no means got here out to publicly tackle, verify nor deny it, a number of lyrics from a number of Drake songs that have been dropped have been immediately geared toward her. A few of these songs embrace “Worst Conduct” off the “Nothing Was the Identical” album in 2013 and “Too Good” off the “Views” album in 2016. (Extra on this later.)
2012: London Olympics
In the meantime, again in 2012, after successful the gold on the London Olympics, Williams celebrated by doing the “crip stroll” or the c-walk. That transfer turned what ought to have been a controversy-free event into one full of backlash because the tennis champ received subsequently raked over the coals for doing a dance that “glorified gang tradition.” Realistically talking, nonetheless, although the dance could have roots within the infamous LA-based Crips gang, it’s come to be adopted and revered by Black tradition at-large and considered as a selected nod to Black LA.
2016-2017: “Views” and a Wedding ceremony
Quick ahead to 2016, Drake dropped his fourth studio album “Views” which featured a observe referred to as “Too Good.” Whereas many didn’t comprehend it on the time, Drake would later come out to verify that the track was in truth about Williams some eight years later.
In the meantime, after lastly calling it quits with the Canadian rapper in 2015, Williams would go on to marry Reddit co-founder Alexis Ohanian in 2017. They’d later welcome their first baby, daughter Alexis Olympia two years later.
2022: Photographs Fired As soon as Once more
Soar to 2022 and Williams couldn’t get pleasure from her newfound marriage and baby with out her messy ex creeping again up. And that’s precisely what Drake did when he dropped his track “Center of the Ocean” from his 2022 collab album with fellow rapper 21 Savage. In it, he referred to as out Williams and her husband by title and referred to as the latter a “groupie.”
The lyrics in its entirety: “Sidebar, Serena, your husband a groupie, he declare we don’t received an issue however no, boo, it’s such as you comin’ for sushi. We’d pop up on’em at will like Suzuki.”
2024, 2025: “Not Like Us” Cosign and Subsequent Tremendous Bowl Efficiency
Enter 2024, when Lamar and Drake started their beef (technically it goes again to 2013, however I digress). Whereas issues principally stayed between the 2 rappers, Lamar took a second to shoutout Williams when he dropped his cultural juggernaut diss observe “Not Like Us” again in Could 2024: “From Alondra right down to Central, n*gga higher not converse on Serena.” This alone served as a get again and a warning towards Drake to maintain Williams’ title out his mouth shifting ahead.
So, by the point it was time for Lamar to take the 2025 Tremendous Bowl stage, what higher solution to give Williams her final redemption arc on two fronts: saying “eff you” to these criticizing her on the 2012 Olympics and her ex who nonetheless appears to be pressed about dropping her all these years later.
Within the quick aftermath, Williams expressed her pleasure over the second (and took a slight jab on the 2012 incident), saying on X/Twitter: “Man, I didn’t crip stroll like that at Wimbledon, I’d’ve been FINED. It was all love.”
And that’s precisely what this second was about. Love for Black tradition, love for being petty, and the love of silencing your haters one step, one second at a time.