Serena Williams made a surprise cameo during Kendrick Lamar’s Super Bowl halftime performance in New Orleans Sunday night. She raised eyebrows for several reasons, one of which included her performing the “crip walk.”
If you’re wondering what the “crip walk” is, it’s associated with the Crips street gang and the notorious area of Compton, California. Williams performed the move while Lamar performed his Drake diss track “Not Like Us.”
First off, Lamar’s halftime performance was straight, white-hot garbage. It’s easily the worst performance in many, many years. There was nothing imaginative about the show; there was zero energy.
Lamar seemed to think he could rest on the power of his music to carry the show. And it wasn’t all that powerful.
Second, the entire strength of his performance seems to be his fan’s obsession with the fact that he has a beef with Drake, who is also allegedly a rapper. How many football fans do you think cared about a diss track involving another guy sports fans despise in Drake?
I’ll give you an estimate. Zero.
Dear @NFL : why are you allowing the likes of Kendrick Lamar to dumb down society with this mind numbingly bad of a Superbowl halftime show? What talent! This is what the youth of America should aspire to for sure! *smh* #HalfTimeShow #SuperBowl #Kendrickpic.twitter.com/dvQhnAY20U
— Liberals Leaving (@LiberalsLeaving) February 10, 2025
The Serena Williams Controversy
The presence of Serena Williams was an intentional addition to the Lamar/Drake feud. The 43-year-old tennis legend was rumored to have dated Drake years ago, and he himself has dissed her in a couple of his songs.
She didn’t just randomly start dancing; the camera operators didn’t organically decide to spotlight her. Even the dance was manufactured to address some past grievances.
Williams, it seems, did the crip walk as a shot at controversy over her doing the same move on the Wimbledon court in London after beating Maria Sharapova for the gold medal at the 2012 Olympics. And she was criticized for it.
“What Serena did was akin to cracking a tasteless, X-rated joke inside a church,” Fox Sports’ Jason Whitlock said at the time.
Watching Serena Williams Crip walk to a diss track Kendrick Lamar wrote about her ex-boyfriend Drake is the kind of petty I aspire to be #kendricklamar #SerenaWilliams #superbowlhalftimeshow pic.twitter.com/vh71ciEPBm
— Stuart Brazell (@stuartbrazell) February 10, 2025
RELATED: Serena Williams Announces She Is Donating Her ‘Super Soldier’ Breast Milk
The Crip Walk
So the question now becomes – Why did the Super Bowl showcase tennis great Serena Williams doing a violent gang-related “dance”?
The dance move originated in the 1970s among members of the Crips gang in Compton, California. It involves making shapes of the letter “C” for “Crips” with one’s feet.
The dance is controversial primarily because it’s deeply rooted in gang culture, symbolizing an affiliation. Shockingly, Williams’ older half-sister Yetunde Price was killed by a member of the Southside Crips gang in a 2003 drive-by shooting.
Serena joked about the dance on social media on Sunday Night.
“Man, I did not crip walk like that at Wimbledon. Ooh, I would’ve been fined,” she said.
"Man, I did not crip walk like that at Wimbledon. Ooh, I would've been fined!" 😂pic.twitter.com/fXQ2hT8UhG https://t.co/DK5rn11UeP
— Modern Notoriety (@ModernNotoriety) February 10, 2025
Sorry, Serena might be the queen, but as Whitlock said, this is tasteless. As is an entire Super Bowl Halftime Show apparently based around some esoteric beef between D-list rappers.
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