Anderson .Paak wouldn’t have gotten the opportunity to perform at the Super Bowl LVI if it weren’t for a lot of nerve and a DIY flyer.
The nine-time Grammy winner played the drums during the Dr. Dre-headlined engagement, which included Snoop Dogg, Eminem, Mary J. Blige, Kendrick Lamar and 50 Cent as performers.
Three years after the halftime show, .Paak reflected on how he was tapped as drummer on the August 9 episode of Drink Champs.
Around the 13-minute mark of the video below, .Paak said he wasn’t “about to be left off that stage.”
“They had already dropped a flyer for the Super Bowl. I was not on that shit,” he continued.
“I hit Dre direct. ‘Dre, what the fuck? Let me get on that joint. Let me play drums, something. I gotta get in there some way. … He said, ‘Hey, it’s all good,'” the musician recounted.
.Paak added that he made his own flyer that he “superimposed” himself on.
“I’m going just take a few liberties. I’m going just throw myself on there,” Paak continued. “And I showed it to [Dre]. He started cracking up. He was like, ‘Make sure they know it’s a joke.'”
The joke worked, and .Paak was a special guest during the show, playing the drums during Em’s performance of “Lose Yourself.”
In response to the hosts saying that he manifested his way into the performance, .Paak joked that it was really a “forced manifestation.”
The Why Lawd? singer also explained that during rehearsals for his Silk Sonic residency in Las Vegas with Bruno Mars, he was also scheduled to rehearse for the Super Bowl, although he was only able to make “two or three.”
Even with a short amount of time to prepare, Paak reminded himself to not drop his drumsticks onstage and called the experience “incredible.”
“The way they orchestrated it, it went off without a hitch. That was a big moment for sure,” .Paak said. I was like, ‘Should I smile?’ I couldn’t help it. And I’m like, ‘I’m going to be straight-faced.’ And then, as you can see, I had the biggest fucking smile the whole time. I tried. I was hyped.”
Over one hundred million viewers tuned into that year’s halftime show, which won two Creative Emmy Awards in the categories of Outstanding Variety Special (Live) and Outstanding Production Design for a Variety Special, and a Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Music Direction.
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