Snoop Dogg says Jay-Z threatened to end NFL deal over Super Bowl halftime show restrictions
Snoop Dogg is opening up about his historic Super Bowl halftime performance with Dr. Dre and company — and how Jay-Z went to bat for them against the NFL.
"Man, when I got home and watched it on playback, I thought it was the greatest s*** ever," Snoop, 50, told Tidal of the Feb. 13 mic-drop show also featuring Mary J. Blige, Eminem, Kendrick Lamar and surprise guest 50 Cent. "Being there, it felt like the greatest concert of all time."
Snoop said it "meant a lot to me" that Dre, who signed him to Death Row Records in 1992 and helped make him a star, "let me come out first. The first vocal was me. To let me kick that off and have enough confidence in the D-O Double to say, 'OK. The biggest moment of my career, I trust the D-O Double. He's going to lead off, and then he’s going to come back at the end of the ninth inning.' You've got to walk the dog back out … boom boom boom, and have all the Crip Walkin'," or C-Walk, a footwork-heavy dance pioneered by L.A. gang the Crips. "You know what I’m saying? It’s the West."
Snoop (real name: Calvin Broadus Jr.) said they wouldn't even have taken the stage had Jay-Z not gone to the wall for them. Since 2019, Jay-Z (real name: Shawn Carter) has been working with the NFL, via his Roc Nation, to enhance live game experiences and amplify the league's social justice efforts.
"Jay was the first one that came to the dressing room when I got offstage," Snoop said. "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. It is what it is..."
Snoop said for Jay-Z "to go to bat for us and tell the NFL, 'F*** that. They perform or I quit,' that was the most gangster s*** out of everything."
Not only did Jay-Z insist they perform, but he made sure they were able to express themselves, with Eminem taking a knee, Snoop wearing a blue bandana-print tracksuit — a blue bandana being a symbol of the Crips (Snoop was a Rollin’ 20s Crip as a teen) — and the song "Still D.R.E" including its controversial "still not lovin' the police" lyric.
"Then with attire and kneeling and all this... you can’t wear your gangbang s**?" Snoop recalled of behind-the-scenes controversy leading up to the performance. "Jay-Z hit me like, 'Wear what the f*** you want to wear. Peace to the Gods.'"
Dr. Dre previously said that NFL bosses only asked for "minor changes" to his Super Bowl halftime show.
"There were a few things that we had to change but it was like really minor things," he said. "Em taking the knee, that was him doing that on his own and there was no problem with that."
NFL spokesperson Brian McCarthy also said that execs did not try to stop Eminem from taking a knee, saying they "were aware that Eminem was going to do that."
Snoop also spoke to Tidal about buying Death Row Records — the first label he was signed to — in February. He now has ownership of his masters — and control of the label he helped build.
"It made sense. It made sense for where I’m at in my career," he said. "I got damn near everything else but that, my [musical] foundation."
As far as what else he owns from other artists on the label — which had become a hot topic — he clarified that Tupac Shakur's masters were returned to his estate last year after a five-year battle. However, "I got a great relationship with his estate, and I'm pretty sure we're going to be able to work something out ... to continue some Death Row/2Pac business now that Snoop Dogg is in control of Death Row. Same with Dr. Dre and The Chronic. I got The Chronic album. I got Doggystyle, Tha Doggfather, Murder Was the Case, Dogg Food, Above the Rim. I got all those records."
As for new artists he hopes to sign to the label, he said he's not going to try to develop artists in so far as telling them how they need to rap. His goal is to champion artists who have an established sound and give their "s***," aka music, 'all the light it need."
"What I don't want is issues," he continued. "I don't want no rappers or no people that got issues, beefs, problems, misunderstandings. I don't want that," referring to his own early years in the rap industry. "I want people that make music. Any of that street s*** — you've got ties to neighborhoods that don't like this neighborhood, you can't get along and you can’t go here, you can't ... all of them can'ts can't be with me. You've got to be able to do everything I do. I can go to any neighborhood. I can go to any city. Anywhere I want to go I can go and don’t have to worry about somebody feeling like I'm disrespecting them, or they've got to get me because my gang or my set disrespected their set or my homies disrespected their homies. This is a business. It all starts from the top. If I present it like that's what I'm looking for, then that's what I'm going to get."
