Earlier this year, while on YG‘s 4HUNNID podcast, Lil Wayne expressed interest in wanting to headline the 2025 Super Bowl halftime show in his hometown.
“I will not lie to you, I have not got a call,” Wayne said around the 23-minute mark during the February interview. “But we all praying, we keeping our fingers crossed. I’m working hard. I’m going to make sure this next album and everything I do is killer, so I’m going make it very hard for them to…I want to just make it hard for them not to highlight the boy.”
He also added that acts are picked more on legacy than they are on having just “a hot single” and gave YG and his co-host credit for acknowledging his 30 years in the game.
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As we now know, Wayne was passed up in favor of Kendrick Lamar for the upcoming 2025 Super Bowl halftime show, which has many fans and artists upset. Weezy has yet to respond, but Nicki Minaj and Birdman have all made their feelings be known, as well as Wayne’s longtime engineer.
“These n—az Pussi @NICKIMINAJ @Drake @LilTunechi YMCMB,” Birdman tweeted earlier Monday. “I’m make these n—az respek us on Gladys.”
Nicki seemed to take aim at Jay-Z and his partnership with the NFL, tweeting, “One n—a took a knee. The other n—a took the bag,” while Weezy’s engineer Fabian Marasciullo expressed disappointment. “Confused. Disappointed. Angry. But most of all, inspired,” he wrote on his Instagram Story over the weekend. “Will never again be in a position or have the [GOAT] in a position where we are at the mercy of someone else’s decision. We will make the decisions.”
New Orleans has hosted the Super Bowl a record-tying 11 times (Miami is the other city), with 2013 being the last time the “Big Game” was played there. Beyoncé headlined the 2013 Super Bowl halftime show.
See Wayne’s interview from February below: