Rihanna has been announced as the headliner for the Super Bowl LVII Halftime Performance and Dr. Dre, who rocked last year's historic Halftime Show, thinks she's going to kill it.
"I just like her and what she does, and her get down, and how she approaches her artistry and the whole nine," Dr. Dre told Ebro Darden, Pitchfork reports. “It’s fantastic. She has the opportunity to really blow us away. I know we set the bar extremely high.”
Dre's performance was not only historic but won an Emmy, and featured Snoop Dogg, Kendrick Lamar, Eminem, 50 Cent, Mary J. Blige, and Anderson.Paak. During an interview on Dolvett Quince’sWorkout the Doubt podcast, Dre said he was considering pulling out of the performance for fear of looking like a sellout.
“I was absolutely concerned about that,” he admitted. “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."
He says that then he 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,'" Dre recalled.
As for Rihanna, this will be her first live performance in five years. The nine-time Grammy winner shared an image to Instagram on Sunday afternoon of her tattooed hand holding an official NFL football.
"We are thrilled to welcome Rihanna to the Apple Music Super Bowl Halftime Show stage," said Seth Dudowsky, NFL Head of Music. "Rihanna is a once in a generation artist who has been a cultural force throughout her career. We look forward to collaborating with Rihanna, Roc Nation and Apple Music to bring fans another historic Halftime Show performance."
She'll hit the stage on February 12, 2023 at the State Farm Stadium in Glendale, Arizona.