Hip hop history almost wasn’t made at this year’s Super Bowl.
Dr. Dre, who spearheaded the trailblazing halftime show featuring Snoop Dogg, 50 Cent, Kendrick Lamar, Eminem and Mary J. Blige, has revealed he nearly pulled out of the big gig.
In a new interview on Dolvett Quince’s “Workout the Doubt” podcast, the Grammy Award-winning super-producer and rapper said that backlash concerns about working with the NFL amid Colin Kaepernick’s exile from the league was at hand.
“I was absolutely concerned about that,” he admitted. “I actually called a couple of close friends and said, ‘Listen, I’m gonna pull out. I’m not gonna do the show. Because I don’t know if I want that smoke. I don’t know if I want the backlash after doing the show and potentially looking like a f—ng sellout or something like that.’
Dr. Dre, whose real name is Andre Romelle Young, said conversations with Jay-Z and Nas are what changed his mind.
“I got on the phone with Nas. He called me up and was like, ‘Yo bro’ — you know, Nas has that voice — ‘Yo bro, you gotta do it. You gotta do this. It’s gonna be so powerful for f—ing hip-hop, for the culture, for you, for L.A. and the whole nine,’” Dre recalled, mimicking the Queensbridge lyricist’s signature cadence.
Since the mid-1990s, Nas has been a close friend and business associate of the 57-year-old West Coast hip hop kingpin.
“We were on the phone for like 10 minutes and he talked me into doing it,” he continued. “Nas and Jay-Z were big reasons why I decided to do the show.”
In August 2019, Jay-Z’s Roc Nation firm and the NFL announced it was entering a multi-year partnership as the league’s official live music entertainment strategist.
The agreement was brokered in the aftermath of the Kaepernick protest movement. The quarterback played for the San Francisco 49ers before becoming an unsigned free agent following a season of kneeling during the national anthem during NFL games in protest of police violence and systemic oppression around the world.
Dr. Dre’s decision has seemingly paid off; the Super Bowl LVI halftime show is currently up for five 2022 Primetime Emmy Awards, including outstanding variety special (live) and outstanding music direction.
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