Dr. Dre has admitted that he almost pulled out of performing at Super Bowl LVI but Jay Z and Nas convinced him to do it. During an interview with Dolvett Quince's Workout the Doubt podcast that he was concerned about being called a “sellout” for working with the NFL.
He explained, “I was absolutely concerned about that. 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 f*cking sellout or something like that.'”
He continued, “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 f*cking Hip Hop, for the culture, for you, for L.A. and the whole nine.'”
He added, “We were on the phone for like 10 minutes and he talked me into doing it. Nas and Jay-Z were big reasons why I decided to do the show.”