Last February, Dr. Dre led an all-star cast of urban music icons and Grammy winners on the field of SoFi Stadium for a monumental halftime show that has since become a part of hip-hope lore. His live performance was presented to the audience and viewers at home in the form of a melody that featured the likes of Snoop Dogg, Eminem, Kendrick Lamar, Mary J. Blige, 50 Cent, and Anderson .Paak. The concert experience lasted approximately 14 minutes and 40 seconds, and it would go on to become the 6th most viewed halftime show in NFL history. But according to Dr. Dre, the performance came very close to not happening at all. Amid all the COVID restrictions going on in Los Angeles Country around that time, the multiplatinum-selling record producer strongly considered canceling the show out of fear of public perception. The 57-year-old was reportedly worried that partnering with the NFL on such a public venture would make it appear that he was going against his moral stance in support of Colin Kaepernick. Dr. Dre recently appeared as the interviewee on a podcast hosted by Dolvett Quince called Workout the Doubt to share his feelings on the matter and to reveal who helped convince him to go through with the heralded performance.
“I was absolutely concerned about that,” Dre said. “I actually called a couple of close friends and said, ‘Listen, I’m gonna pull out. I’m not gonna 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 fucking sellout or something like that...“I got on the phone with Nas. He called me up and was like, ‘Yo bro’ — you know, Nas has that voice — ‘Yo bro, you gotta do it. You gotta do this. It’s gonna be so powerful for fucking 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," Dre explained. "Nas and Jay-Z were big reasons why I decided to do the show.”
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Source: Hot New Hip Hop
