Dr. Dre, Eminem, Kendrick Lamar and more set for 2022 Super Bowl Halftime Show
BANG Showbiz English
Dr. Dre, Eminem, Kendrick Lamar, Snoop Dogg and Mary J. Blige will play the 2022 Pepsi Super Bowl LVI Halftime Show.
The NFL showpiece will return on February 13, 2022 at the SoFi Stadium in Inglewood, Los Angeles, and for the first time in the history of the halftime performance slot, five music stars will perform together.
Hip-hop legend Dre said: “The opportunity to perform at the Super Bowl Halftime show, and to do it in my own backyard, will be one of the biggest thrills of my career.
“I’m grateful to JAY-Z, Roc Nation, the NFL, and Pepsi as well as Snoop Dogg, Eminem, Mary J. Blige and Kendrick Lamar for joining me in what will be an unforgettable cultural moment.”
Jay-Z – who is tasked by the NFL with advising on musical events – has hailed the lineup “history in the making”.
Todd Kaplan, vice president of marketing at Pepsi, added: “Artists like Dr. Dre and Snoop Dogg were at the forefront of the West Coast hip hop revolution, so to be able to bring them back to LA, where it all began alongside Eminem, Mary J. Blige and Kendrick Lamar will prove to be an epic, unforgettable celebration of the impact hip-hop has today.”
Dre was instrumental in launching the career of Eminem, having signed the ‘Lose Yourself’ rapper in 1998, while Snoop shot to fame after appearing on Dre’s debut solo single, ‘Deep Cover’, in 1992.
The studio wizard and music mogul has also overseen and produced tracks for Kendrick.
The Weeknd headlined the 2020 halftime show performance, which saw the chart-topping singer perform on a stage that looked like a scaled-down version of the Las Vegas strip.
Owing to the COVID-19 pandemic and social distancing measures, there were no special guests and only 25,000 spectators allowed inside the Raymond James Stadium in Tampa, Florida.
The Weeknd and his crew performed largely off the field, while there was only a “fraction of the workforce” to make the show go ahead safely.
However, the ‘Blinding Lights’ hitmaker – who spent $7 million of his own money on the epic performance – still pulled out all the stops with his set midway through the showpiece NFL final between the Tampa Bay Buccaneers and the Kansas City Chiefs in Tampa, Florida.
He first appeared on stage in a floating black convertible surrounded by neon nights to recreate Las Vegas, before the stadium stands divided in the middle with the ‘False Alarm’ hitmaker appearing in between.
A masked choir with robot masks with red lasers sang from the stands, while The Weeknd stepped out in the glittering red suit jacket his alter ego from ‘After Hours’ wears and performed ‘Starboy’.
Jazmine Sullivan and Eric Church had earlier performed the US national anthem, ‘The Star-Spangled Banner’, and H.E.R. performed ‘America The Beautiful’.
