Dr. Dre, Snoop Dogg, Mary J. Blige, Kendrick Lamar, Eminem, 50 Cent and Anderson .Paak came together Sunday night for the Super Bowl LVI Halftime Show. The SoFi Stadium in Inglewood, Calif. welcomed the stars, many of whom came up in the neighboring areas (all of whom have connections to the music that did) to watch the Los Angeles Rams beat the Cincinnati Bengals 23-20.
The show started with Dre rising from what looked like a home studio, to the roof of an ice white structure, shaped like a 16-wheeler pulling trailers in the center of the field. As he arrived on top of one of the boxes, the horns sampled from "The Edge" by David McCallum on Dre's seminal track "The Next Episode" washed over cheering fans. Riding high on the next trailer over, adorned in the Ram's blue and yellow towered Snoop Dogg, welcoming the man who featured him on the original recording off 1999's The Chronic 2001.
The row of trailers also served as a sculpture in tribute to Compton staples including Tam's Burgers, the Martin Luther King memorial and the Eve After Dark nightclub. The importance of Compton to Dre and his family only deepened as the lower "inside" levels of the structure were revealed to be made to look like homes – one was even equipt with a framed photo of Snoop Dogg and his late mother, Beverly Tate. Dre and Snoop Dogg then raised their glasses to the heavens with a rendition of "California Love," a nod to their old friend Tupac Shakur.
The next track kicked off in one container over. In a callback to his breakout music video, surprise guest 50 Cent rapped the intro from 2003's "In Da Club," (produced by Dre) while hanging upside down. The pace didn't slow as Mary J. Blidge appeared with her own songs from the turn of the millennium, "Family Affair" and "No More Drama."
In a return to the more contemporary, Kendrick Lamar was delivered by a crew of stunt doubles, via box, in a suit from the late designer Virgil Abloh's final fall 2022 menswear collection for Louis Vuitton. A mixture of melody from "m.A.A.d. City” and “Alright," (both from projects with callbacks to his life in Compton: good kid, m.A.A.d city and To Pimp A Butterfly), appeared in his tribute to Dre.
Next came the best-selling rapper in history, Eminem. Marshall Mathers rose, much like Dre, from the inside of the stage and arrived on top of the structure. He started his appearance with his rapid-fire verse from "Forgot About Dre." Next, he shared his Oscar-winning, billboard topping, five-time-platinum song "Lose Yourself." A full band, horn section and percussionist Anderson .Paak joined him on the track.
The 15-minute performance was capped off by Dre on grand piano, notably, Eminem took a knee behind him as a sign of respect towards Colin Kaepernick's protests, and fight against the ongoing systematic race issues the country continues to face. Appropriately, "Still D.R.E." served as the closing song and the mogul was joined by his protégés who have defined and impacted contemporary music for over two decades. As fireworks exploded overhead the deafening cheers solidified not only a historic halftime show but also showed respect towards an engine that pulled American culture an unfathomable distance at unprecedented speed.
Watch the full Super Bowl LVI Halftime Show below:
