The supergroup of hip-hop and R&B legends delivered the most entertaining
Super Bowl half-time show in years
![Dr Dre, Snoop Dogg, Eminem, Kendrick Lamar and Mary J Blige’s half-time show – an all-timer](https://i.guim.co.uk/img/media/d67d625f93a91f071b54eb9520fa631315afa6f8/0_216_3236_1942/master/3236.jpg?width=1200&height=630&quality=85&auto=format&fit=crop&overlay-align=bottom%2Cleft&overlay-width=100p&overlay-base64=L2ltZy9zdGF0aWMvb3ZlcmxheXMvdGctcmV2aWV3LTUucG5n&enable=upscale&s=429f0fa5012d81ee13db19d060e5a687)
Even by Super Bowl standards, an event in which the mythologising is as much of a sport as the
Football, this has been a particularly hyped half-time show. Three weeks before the fact, the
NFL released a four-minute
trailer, a third as long as the performance itself, which saw Dr Dre, the most important producer in rap history, assemble a superhero cast of 90s hip-hop and R&B legends: Eminem, Mary J Blige and Snoop Dogg as well as Kendrick Lamar, the great west-coast hip-hop talent of his generation, who went to the same Compton high school as Dre.
Yet, despite all that pomp, this felt like a different kind of half-time show, directorially and musically more inventive than the normal tropes of marching bands and fake fans on the pitch. There was more collaboration and smart interstitial set-pieces, all brought together by Anderson.Paak’s impressive live band. Just before it began, the
NBC hosts whispered it might be the greatest Super Bowl half-time show ever – it wasn’t far off.