by Cedric 'BIG CED' Thornton

August 21, 2022

Dr. Dre Feared Being Called a Sell-Out If He Took the Superbowl Gig, But Nas and Jay-Z Convinced Him

It was recently revealed that two legendary New York rappers convinced a West Coast Hip Hop producer to do an epic show in his home state and cement his legacy in hip-hop.

According to The New York Daily News, this year’s Pepsi Super Bowl LVI Halftime Show featured Dr. Dre, Snoop Dogg, Eminem, Mary J. Blige, Kendrick Lamar, 50 Cent and Anderson.Paak almost didn’t take place. It took rap heavyweights Nas and Jay-Z to convince him to do the halftime performance for good reason.

Dr. Dre appeared on Dolvett Quince’s Workout the Doubt podcast and revealed that he had doubts about performing at this year’s NFL halftime show because he didn’t want to be labeled a sellout because of the Colin Kaepernick situation.

“I was absolutely concerned about that. I actually called a couple of close friends and said, ‘Listen, I’m gonna pull out.’”

He feared that due to Kaepernick being blackballed from the league that he would be criticized for performing with the very same league that prevented the former quarterback from playing in the NFL. So, he had planned on turning it down.

“I’m not going to 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–king sellout or something like that.’”

Then he got a phone call from his good friend rapper Nas.

“I got on the phone with Nas. He called me up and said, ‘Yo bro’ — you know, Nas has that voice — ‘Yo bro, you gotta do it. You have to do this. It’s going to be so powerful for f–king hip-hop, for the culture, for you, for L.A. and the whole nine.’ ”

“We were on the phone for like 10 minutes, and he talked me into doing it. Nas and JAY-Z were big reasons why I decided to do the show.”


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