The halftime show was filled with rap legends: Snoop Dogg, 50 Cent, Eminem, Kendrick Lamar, Dr. Dre, Mary J. Blige, Anderson.Paak and his band The Free Nationals. Eminem was the only white artist in the lineup.
After performing his Oscar-winning song ‘Lose Yourself’ with Dr. Dre on the piano, Eminem took a knee, which has become a symbol of peacefully protesting police brutality, as well as a surefire way to upset conservative Americans.
During Giuliani’s radio show on Monday, he said, “Let's get right to Eminem taking a knee. Why doesn't he go to another country? I mean, go take a knee someplace else. You know how many cops were defending him and protecting him at that game yesterday?"
In an episode titled, ‘Hilary’s True Colors’, Giuliani also called Black Lives Matter a ‘cop-killing’ organization. “He thinks that all happened because everybody loves Eminem?" he continued. “The simple reality is the NFL has made a mockery of law enforcement, particularly with its support for the cop-killing Black Lives Matter.”
Dr. Dre, the legendary Compton rapper, producer, and entrepreneur with a rap career that began in 1985, said, “Em taking a knee, that was Em doing that on his own. And, there was no problem with that.”
Eminem was most likely imitating former San Francisco 49er quarterback Colin Kaepernick, who knelt during the national anthem at a game in 2016. The protest symbol, which was meant to bring attention to the issue of police brutality in the States, has a history of upsetting conservative Americans.
Former President Donald Trump, for instance, who is a close friend of Guiliani’s as well as a former client, criticized Kaepernick’s kneeling as being disrespectful.
Eminem was not the only target of the former New York City mayor's ire. Giuliani also took a shot at Snoop Dogg, the 50-year-old rapper with a career almost as prolific as Dre’s, referring to Snoop as “Snoop ‘kill police’ Doggy Dogg”, while mimicking his rap style with groans and mumbling.
The song Giuliani is most likely referring to is the 2022 single ‘Police’, which features four artists including Snoop. But the intro lyrics to the song, which say, “Take your guns that you using to shoot each other/ And start shooting these [explicit] police/ That'll impress a [explicit] like me/ The crooked mother*******,” were not actually delivered by Snoop but were sampled from deceased rap artist 2Pac's song, ‘CN2’.