To call “Not Like Us” a cultural moment would be an understatement at this point. Kendrick Lamar’s epic diss track has taken the world by storm since it dropped last summer, but as of the last two weeks, the record has reached new heights, gaining its widest audience yet after winning multiple Grammy awards, Kendrick’s Super Bowl performance and now, a hilarious send-up on “Saturday Night Live.”
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As Lamar reaches his wider listener base yet, however, will that ultimately change the legacy of the song and this major moment overall? We’re asking ourselves this after SNL’s “The Homecoming Concert” at Radio City Music Hall, when Will Ferrell and Ana Gasteyer reprised their roles of The Culps.
“The Culps” are a music teaching couple whom Ferrell and Gasteyer conceived in the 1990s to hilariously perform prim and proper covers of popular songs of the time, including pop, rock and Hip-Hop hits of the moment. For the concert, they covered big hits from Chappell Roan, Megan Thee Stallion and yes, Kendrick Lamar.
The crowd, of course, went wild as they descended into a cover of “Not Like Us.” Ferrell, as Marty Culp, then said in the skit, “Are Kenny Lamar and Drake Graham in the house, by the way? Maybe you two can hug it out tonight in the name of love and fellowship? No? Not in Hell?”
A parody on “SNL” is one of the greatest honors in Hollywood, but is this a sign of something bigger going on with this song? To be fair, the point of a sketch like “The Culps” is for them to do a “classical” cover of a hit song, and what song is bigger right now than Lamar’s number 1 hit on the Hot 100? But still, does this mean that Lamar’s track may not simply be “ours” anymore, but a song for everybody now, one that white listeners will accept as their own?
The Sklar Brothers podcast makes this argument in their viral Instagram reel, as they claim Kendrick may have “won by too much” with all of his accolades and his record-breaking performance at the Super Bowl. In the clip, the two white comedians warn Lamar, saying, “you don’t want these fans,” quipping that he did so well that now his fanbase will inevitably include more white listeners.
“Do you want Bachelorette parties of white women showing up to your shows, drunk on a bunch of white claws, just culturally appropriating everything of yours?” they said.
To be clear, an artist can simply make the art, they have no control over its consumption, and this argument is one that comes up often with popular Black artists, going all the way back to common pushbacks against Whitney Houston’s vast popularity with white audiences, all the way to Beyoncé’s greatest achievements (remember when fans suddenly remembered she was Black back when “Lemonade” came out?)
So, yes, “Not Like Us” may be reaching new heights (and time will tell what the crowd looks like at his upcoming tour with SZA), but no matter who parodies or consumes Kendrick’s art, it’s still his art and it’s still ours to consume. “Not Like Us” will be an anthem forever and that was determined months ago, long before those Grammys, the Super Bowl and the “SNL” stage.
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