People in China tuned in in droves to embrace the hip hop vibes of the 2022 Super Bowl halftime show — arguably the best part of the sporting event for people uninterested in football, with the performance viewed more than 3.6 million times on Tencent Video.
The football game, including the halftime performance, was streamed on various Chinese media platforms such as Tencent Video, which holds an exclusive partnership with the NFL.
“I’ve tried to watch the Super Bowl every year, but I think the halftime show this year is the best one so far,” Anna, a hip hop fan from the Southwest China province of Sichuan, tells RADII, “West Coast culture is well-represented in every way possible.”
The halftime show was also trending on Weibo, and the related hashtag had accumulated more than 400 million views at the time of writing.
Many wrote to share their appreciation of the halftime show.
“It brought me back to the ’90s. This is real West Coast,” commented a netizen on Weibo.
“I was getting goosebumps nonstop,” another wrote, “Nobody could say ‘no’ to ‘Lose Yourself’ by Eminem.”
Eminem, Snoop Dogg, Dr.Dre, Mary J. Blige e Kendrick Lamar e 50 cent, singing STILL DRE
#SuperBowl #PepsiHalftime #nfl pic.twitter.com/NOwkRaiTQm
— SA Media Promotions (@SAMediaPromo) February 14, 2022
The epic, 14-minute-long show included performances from prominent singers and rappers Dr. Dre, Snoop Dogg, Eminem, Mary J. Blige, and Kendrick Lamar. The five artists have won a combined 43 Grammys and have created 22 No. 1 Billboard albums.
For Los Angeles artists Dr. Dre, Snoop Dogg and Kendrick Lamar, the night symbolized a homecoming, as the match was the first Super Bowl in Los Angeles this century.
In 2019, NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell marked China as a “priority market” and has teamed up with Tencent since 2017 to promote the league in China.
Cover image: screengrab via YouTube
