Dr. Dre on Rihanna’s Super Bowl Halftime Show: “She Has the Opportunity to Really Blow Us Away”

Earlier this week, the NFL announced that it will partner with Apple Music as the sponsor for the Super Bowl LVII Halftime Show. After rumors that Taylor Swift would be chosen as this year’s halftime performer began to circulate, Rihanna announced that she will officially be headlining the show. As part of the Super Bowl announcement, Dr. Dre sat down with Apple Music 1 host Ebro Darden to discuss Rihanna’s headlining performance.

“I just like her and what she does, and her get down, and how she approaches her artistry and the whole nine,” Dr. Dre said. “It’s fantastic. She has the opportunity to really blow us away. I know we set the bar extremely high.”

Dr. Dre notably performed alongside Kendrick Lamar, Eminem, Mary J. Blige, and Snoop Dogg at last year’s event, which was also the first Super Bowl to feature hip-hop during its halftime performance. Describing his Super Bowl debut, he said:

It made me extremely nervous. I don’t know if I’ve ever been that nervous before. Not only that, I don’t know if I’ve ever looked more forward to a Monday morning. So it’s the preparation and making sure you have the right people around you. All of these people came through for me, and everybody was extremely enthusiastic about the show. We had a good time, although it’s a lot of things and a lot of people you have to depend on. You’re talking about at least 3000 people that you have to depend on to get this show right for 13 minutes. So it is an extreme amount of pressure, but it’s fun at the same time. When it’s done, it’s like goosebumps, bro. I got goosebumps, especially from the reaction that we got from the show, and especially being able to do the show with all of my friends.

Super Bowl LVII takes place on February 12, 2023 and will be broadcast live on Fox. It’s the first Super Bowl Halftime Show to feature Apple Music as its presenting sponsor, following a decade of sponsorship from Pepsi.

Rihanna’s performance is her first since 2018, when she appeared alongside DJ Khaled and Bryson Tiller at the 2018 Grammy Awards. Since then, she’s given birth to her first child with A$AP Rocky, and continued to work on her Fenty clothing line.

Read Pitchfork’s feature “The Super Bowl’s First Hip-Hop Halftime Show Was an Exercise in Easy Nostalgia.”