Dr. Dre and Snoop Dogg opened the Super Bowl LVI at SoFi Stadium in Los Angeles with the song “The Next Episode,” on the roof of a “house.” Hundreds of dancers joined them for a party that will be remembered for a long time. Along with surprise guest 50 Cent and Mary J. Blige, Kendrick Lamar and Eminem, they paid tribute to some of hip-hop’s greatest hits.
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Amid growing tensions over racial discrimination within the NFL, the stars made history as the first hip-hop act to headline America's biggest stage. In a press conference Thursday, Dre, whose real name is Andre Young, stressed the importance of diverse representation in the league and said his halftime show would open the door for more rappers to have the same opportunity.
"Hip-hop is the biggest genre on the planet right now, so it's crazy that it's taken all this time and all this time to get recognized," Dr. Dre said Thursday. "We're going to make it so big that they can't deny us anymore in the future."
And they did. With Dre at the helm, the lineup played nine iconic songs during halftime, including 50 Cent’s “ In Da Club ,” Mary J. Blige’s “ Family Affair ” and “ No More Drama, ” Kendrick Lamar’s “ Alright ,” and Eminem’s “ Lose Yourself .”
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50 Cent made his entrance hanging from the ceiling. As dancers waved black “Compton” flags on the court below him, Dre closed the show with “Still DRE,” including the iconic lines “Still f*ck with the beats, still notloving police” and “I’m representing for them gangstas all across the world.”
Young and the rest of the stars were not paid for the performance, though the show served as a strong launching pad for his upcoming album Casablanca with Marsha Ambrosius, which he announced he had completed in October.
The promotion worked wonders for The Weeknd last year: On Super Bowl LV night, his album sold 36,500 copies, a 385% jump from the 7,500 copies sold the day before, according to MRC Data, and on Spotify, his streams were up nearly 220% in the U.S. and 72% in the U.K. Less than a week later, Live Nation announced that it had sold nearly 1 million tickets for his postponed After Hours.
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The performance also garnered thousands of impressions on social media. As of 9:25 p.m. ET, there were 23.6 thousand tweets mentioning the #PepsiHalftime.
