"Only white people hated it": Pokimane defends Kendrick Lamar's Super Bowl halftime show

During a livestream on February 10, 2025, Twitch star Imane "Pokimane" defended Kendrick Lamar's Super Bowl halftime show performance. Clips of her addressing critics who claimed the rapper did not deserve the spot have been circulating on social media platforms like X.

For those out of the loop, Lamar headlined the Super Bowl halftime show on February 9, 2025, just days after his Grammy wins. While his performance received widespread praise, it also faced a considerable amount of criticism.

Pokimane, fresh from her own Grammys appearance, strongly defended Lamar. She criticized individuals "with probably zero music capabilities" for their negative opinions on his Super Bowl performance:

"People with probably zero music capabilities think that Kendrick Lamar didn't deserve the halftime show. Huh? I, what? What do you mean? Sure, we can sit here and be like, 'I actually think this! Or this deserved it.' What?"

The streamer, who was born in Morocco, then read out comments from her chat and claimed that "only white people hated" Lamar's Super Bowl halftime show.

"Only white people hated it. I didn't want to say it. As a white-passing person, I didn't want to say that. But, you saying that and me repeating that message, I'm just going to just let that sit."

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"Nothing wrong being a white man": Pokimane says people should stop hating on Kendrick Lamar's Super Bowl halftime show

During the same broadcast, Pokimane emphasized that her point was not to single out "white men." She suggested that people should recognize the underlying messages in Kendrick Lamar's performance and their significance during Black History Month:

"Also, you know what pissed me off the most? The people that I saw with this take the most were white men. Ain't nothing wrong being a white man, that's not the point. My point is that, if you actually watched his performance and really took it in, you would be like, 'There are some underlying messages that the performance is trying to convey. Especially during Black History Month.'"

She concluded by calling on critics to stop saying Lamar did not deserve to headline the Super Bowl, urging them to "stop" in both English and French:

"So you're sitting there, respectfully, and being like, 'I don't think he deserved it.' It's just like, stop, please, please. Arrêt, please, arrêt. If you don't know what that means, that means stop in French."

In related news, unlike Pokimane, Kick streamer Adin Ross heavily criticized Kendrick Lamar's Super Bowl performance.