Whether the song, where Drake and his entourage in the lyrics are accused of being "criminal pedophiles who the public should be warned about", would be played or not was perhaps the biggest topic of discussion before the super event that took place on Sunday night Swedish time.
After a short sequence of the hit, Kendrick Lamar switched to another song, but later returned to the controversial outro – with a slightly adjusted text – and was met with explosive cheers from the audience.
Williams danced
In the middle of the song, Serena Williams suddenly appeared, like Lamar from the Los Angeles neighborhood Compton, and danced in front of millions of TV viewers and tens of thousands of people on site.
It was likely a deliberate choice that it was the retired tennis star who was seen.
Williams, who has 23 Grand Slam titles in her bag, and Drake are said to have dated each other in the early 2010s. The Canadian rapper, also one of the world's biggest artists, has admitted that he had Williams in mind when he wrote his song "Too good" which was released in 2016.
Long-standing feud
Lamar's "Not like us" also happens to have a lyric that reads "better not speak on Serena", roughly "you shouldn't talk about Serena".
The night's performance is the latest chapter in the long-standing feud between the two rappers. Last week, Kendrick Lamar was awarded five times for "Not like us" at the Grammy Awards, which took place just a few weeks after Drake filed a lawsuit against Universal Music for defamation and harassment because the company had released and marketed the song in question.
