THE SUPER BOWL
OF HIP-HOP

Guess who’ll be rocking the halftime entertainment at Super Bowl LVI next February in L.A.? Dr. Dre, Snoop Dogg, Eminem, Mary J. Blige and Kendrick Lamar. It’ll be the first time these superstars have shared one stage and will mark the first time the big game has been in Los Angeles in 30 years (at Inglewood's own SoFi Stadium). It’ll air 2/13/22 on NBC.

Dre, Snoop and Kendrick, as you well know, are among our fair city’s greatest musical exponents. Em and Mary bring Detroit and NYC to the table.

As for their respective hometown teams, the L.A. Rams look like the class of the NFC in the early going, and it wouldn’t be a shock to see them playing for a chip in their own stadium come February, just as Tampa Bay’s Tom Brady did earlier this year in Super Bowl LV. It would be far more unlikely for the Chargers, who also call SoFi home, to come out of the AFC, but they just knocked off Super Bowl LIV champs the K.C. Chiefs on their home field, and the other L.A. team could become one of the season’s big surprises if the ball bounces their way and Justin Herbert continues to look like the new Patrick Mahomes.

Marshall’s beloved Detroit Lions, on the other hand, are only slightly less pathetic than the N.Y. Giants and Jets; none of the three has a snowball’s chance in hell to make the playoffs, let alone advance to Football’s Biggest Night.

So whether you’re talking star power or rooting interests, it’s hard not to think of this gathering as a “G” Thang, baby.

The continuing influence of Jay-Z on the cultural direction of the NFL is of course underscored here.

We’ll be stirring up a giant bowl of gin and juice—and rolling a towering pile of blunts—in anticipation.