As the popular American Football game, Super Bowl returns to Los Angeles for the first time in almost 30 years, the NFL has pulled out all the stops with a bumper half-time show that will feature Eminem, Snoop Dogg, Mary J Blige, Kendrick Lamar and Dr Dre.
The @Pepsi Halftime Show is just three days away… #PepsiHalftime #SBLVI@drdre @eminem @snoopdogg @maryjblige @kendricklamar pic.twitter.com/NiTUNKdTJS
— NFL (@NFL) February 10, 2022
On Sunday at SoFi Stadium in Inglewood, Calif., the Super Bowl halftime show will feature the local rap heroes Dr. Dre, Snoop Dogg and Kendrick Lamar, placing hip-hop firmly at the centre of the annual spectacle, which is routinely watched by more than 100 million people, for the first time.
With 43 Grammys between them, it’s another all-star cast for this Hollywood epic, and a homecoming for Lamar, Dre and Snoop Dogg.
The show, which is being produced in part by Jay-Z’s entertainment and sports company, Roc Nation, will also star Eminem and Mary J. Blige, but it will not be the first to include rap music. The genre has taken a rocky, roundabout path to headliner status at the Super Bowl, with this year’s event coming at an increasingly fraught moment for the N.F.L. regarding race.
That baggage is nothing new: At least since 2016, when the quarterback Colin Kaepernick began kneeling during the national anthem to protest police killings of Black people, the league has faced questions about its commitment to diversity and social justice, on the field and off. More than 70 per cent of the league’s players are Black, but the N.F.L. has no Black owners and, until recently, only one Black head coach. This month, Brian Flores, the Miami Dolphins head coach who was fired last month, sued the league, claiming he and others had been discriminated against in the hiring process.
Those debates have trickled into its entertainment business. In 2017, well before his company partnered with the N.F.L., Jay-Z turned down an offer to perform at the Super Bowl and reportedly urged others to do the same. In subsequent years, with Jay-Z declaring “we’ve moved past kneeling” to some backlash among players and fans, Roc Nation has booked pop extravaganzas featuring the Weeknd, Jennifer Lopez and Shakira.
But Dr. Dre and Snoop Dogg — while among the most recognizable hip-hop veterans with decades of hits and pop culture cachet between them — represent something different, and that may be the idea. “At one point, Dre was in a group that was banned by popular culture,” said Will.i.am of the Black Eyed Peas, which headlined the show in 2011, referencing the widespread controversies of Dr. Dre’s early gangster rap act N.W.A.
“The N.F.L. is positioning the halftime show as a meaningful occurrence,” Dr. Ketra Armstrong, a professor of sport management at the University of Michigan and the director of the Center for Race & Ethnicity in Sport, said in an interview. “But to some, it seems performative for the N.F.L. to feature these artists. It feels like window dressing. You’re using Black talent to entertain the masses, but what are you doing that would honour the essence of hip-hop, like addressing racial injustices in the communities that have bred this labour force of Black talent?”