Pepsi Super Bowl LVI Halftime Show
Image: Gregory Shamus/Getty

Watch Dr. Dre, Snoop Dogg, Mary J. Blige, Kendrick Lamar, Eminem And More Perform The Super Bowl LVI Halftime Show

By Alex Gallagher

Dr. Dre, Snoop Dogg, Mary J. Blige, Kendrick Lamar and Eminem have performed their much-anticipated Super Bowl LVI halftime show at SoFi Stadium in Inglewood, California.

The 15-minute performance featured an elaborate stage production comprising multiple houses, different rooms and structures, scores of backup dancers, guest appearances from 50 Cent and Anderson .Paak and a slew of greatest hits from the rap legends.

The show began with Dre ascending from a rising platform to roars from the crowd, before he and Snoop kicked things off with their 2001 collaboration ‘The Next Episode’, following it up with 2Pac‘s ‘California Love’.

50 Cent – who had not previously been announced as part of the show – then performed his hit ‘In Da Club’, starting it off by hanging upside down a la the song’s classic video clip. Mary J. Blige then delivered a powerhouse performance of two hits from 2001 album No More Drama – ‘Family Affair’ along with its title track.

Kendrick, flanked by men in Dre Day sashes, then performed a section of ‘m.A.A.d city’ followed by ‘Alright’. Eminem then appeared on top of a large platform next to Dre, starting with his chorus from ‘Forgot About Dre’ before launching into a rendition of ‘Lose Yourself’ that featured a backing band that included Anderson .Paak playing drums.

Em ended the performance by kneeling. Earlier today, a new report claimed that the NFL had denied a request by the rapper to take a knee – former 49ers quarterback Colin Kaepernick regularly did so throughout the 2016 season to protest racial injustice and police brutality.

The show ended with Snoop and Dre linking back up to perform an electrifying rendition of ‘Still D.R.E.’ Dre performed the song with its “still not loving police” lyric, despite the aforementioned report claiming he had been discouraged by the league from rapping that line.

“This should have happened a long time ago as far as hip hop [goes],” Dre said of the show at a press conference prior to the performance. “Hip hop is the biggest genre of music on the planet right now so it’s crazy it took all of this and all of this time for us to be recognized. We’re going to do a fantastic show and we’re going to do it so big that they can’t deny us in the future.”

Watch clips from the halftime show below, and see the performance in full here below.

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Alex Gallagher
Alex Gallagher

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