Drake reportedly turned down the Super Bowl Halftime gig twice, according to a recent claim by music executive Steve Stoute. In an appearance on the The Pivot, the executive stated his claim:
"I will confirm: Drake was offered the Super Bowl twice.Drake did turn down the Super Bowl twice. And I'm sure if Drake would've said yes, he would've brought Lil Wayne out at some point, right? He probably would've brought out Nicki, which is probably why she's upset because she's not on the stage."
He continued:
"But Drake turned it down twice. So, like, this, 'the NFL, somebody spoke to' – No. He turned it down twice, which is fine. He didn't want to do it. But nobody's going to say, 'Damn, why'd you turn it down? You could've got Lil Wayne on.' Right? Nobody's going to connect that dot. The other thing that no one seems to think about is why isn't Jay-Z picking himself?"
He went on to question why no one was questioning Jay-Z not picking himself for the concert, and that people should celebrate the fact that the legend wasn't being selfish and letting someone else play at the Halftime show.
More on the reports of Drake turning down Superbowl Halftime gig
The reports of the Canadian rapper turning down the Superbowl Halftime gig first came out when Jamil “Mal” Clay first claimed that the rapper turned it down on an episode of the New Rory & MAL podcast, stating:
"Drake has been offered this Super Bowl show for some years now and has turned it down. Probably four years, he's been offered to perform at the Super Bowl, said no for whatever reason."
After Jamil "Mal" Clay's claims, Elliot Wilson also came forward to state that the Canadian rapper turned down the Halftime gig twice in an episode of The Bigger Picture, stating:
"I have it on authority, multiple sources have told me that Drake has indeed turned down the Super Bowl.He actually turned down the first two [since JAY-Z's NFL partnership] — the one in Miami and The Weeknd one."
The Canadian rapper has not commented on these claims or the gig being awarded to Kendrick Lamar, with whom he had a recent feud.
A brief overview of the rapper's recent activities
The rapper recently dropped 100 GB worth of data on the website 100 Gigs for Your Headtop in early August 2024. The data included three new songs, the first of which, It’s Up, is a collaboration with 21 Savage and Young Thug. The second song Housekeeping Knows, is a collaboration with Latto, and the third song is a solo release titled Blue Green Red.
Aside from the three songs, which were all in the folder titled '1_New', the massive data dump also included behind-the-scenes footage from the Hotline Bling music video as well as some studio footage with Noah “40” Shebib and Boi-1da.
Other folders contained footage from the rapper's listening parties as well as OVO Fest, alongside tour music videos, complete albums, and more. The entirety of the 100 GB data is available for download from the website mentioned above.
The massive new website data dump is the rapper's first noteworthy public endeavor since the latest episode of his feud with Kendrick Lamar in May 2024 and one that has been supported by his label OVO on their social media.