JAY-Z was monumental in bringing the hip hop-dominated Super Bowl LVI halftime show to life, according to Snoop Dogg. In a recent interview with Elliott Wilson, Tha Doggfather emcee revealed that the Brooklyn star threatened to drop out of his partnership with NFL if the idea for the groundbreaking performance was turned down. He was also the first to join Snoop backstage, where they collectively reveled in the moment.
“JAY was the first one that came to the dressing room when I got offstage,” Snoop recalled of his encounter with Hov. “We had [300 Entertainment CEO] Kevin Liles in there. Kevin Liles had JAY on FaceTime, trying to show him where we was at. So then he came down, and soon as he came in he hugged me. We hug each other tight. It was as if we won a championship. Like, you know when you’re genuinely happy for each other? People don’t understand, me and him are the ones. He’s the one on the East. I’m the one from the West.”
“We love each other. Like, not secretly, like publicly, we love each other,” he added. “It is what it is, so it’s like for him to go to bat for us and tell the NFL, ‘Fuck that. They perform or I quit,’ that was the most gangster shit out of everything. Then with attire and kneeling and all this … you can’t wear your gang bang shit? JAY-Z hit me like, ‘Wear what the fuck you want to wear. Peace to the Gods.’”
Snoop’s TIDAL conversation is not the first time he’s credited JAY for helping put together the performance, which featured Mary J. Blige, Kendrick Lamar, 50 Cent, Dr.Dre, Snoop and Em. Ahead of the big day, he told “The Breakfast Club” that JAY helped to put the show together, alluding to some fights he battled along the way.
“Shoutout to JAY-Z for umm, going to war and making that thang happen — puttin’ the first hip hop act on the stage. You know, people don’t give him credit for a lot of things that he do,” said the “Gin & Juice” emcee. “He moves his hands mysteriously behind the scenes and he does a lot of great things for people. And I wanna give him a shoutout for fighting for Dr. Dre because I know that, that’s a part of my legacy that he fought for.”
JAY-Z has been overseeing and enhancing the Super Bowl halftime show and other entertainment options on the NFL since securing a multi-year partnership with the league in 2019. He is also reportedly responsible for amplifying the NFL’s social justice efforts.
“Every conversation I’ve had with JAY has been inspiring,” NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell said at the time. “Not just on his perspective on the process of how we do the entertainment, but what we should try to achieve. We always say we should get better and we should evolve. We think we should partner with the best, and that’s why we’re sitting here. We believe we’re partnering with the best. So, his perspective is going to drive us.”