Will Dr Dre’s halftime Super Bowl show move the NFL beyond its race crisis?

“I would’ve never thought that this moment would be happening right now,” Dr Dre said in an October interview heralding his headlining slot in this year’s Super Bowl halftime show. “Everybody’s gonna leave here happy and excited about what we’re about to do.”

On paper the 55-year-old Dre (real name: Andre Romelle Young) seems a perfect fit for this showcase – not just a famous Angeleno of the City of Compton but arguably the most influential maker of modern Black music besides Quincy Jones and Kanye West.

In addition to the Dre and NWA rap catalogues, the Super Bowl halftime show – the world’s most watched musical performance – will include collaborators Snoop Dogg, Eminem and Kendrick Lamar, plus hip-hop soul queen Mary J Blige. Midway through next Sunday’s title clash between the Cincinnati Bengals and Los Angeles Rams, Dre and friends will play to a global audience in the hundreds of millions for 12 precious minutes. The F Gary Gray directed trailer, titled The Call, features Dre organizing his team like chess pieces as Still Dre and Mary J’s Family Affair and other Dre-produced hits play in the background. The slick production harks to the naughties era of million-dollar music video budgets.

It’san audacious return to the spotlight for a man who once ruled the radio, stage and screen as a solo rap artist – and who is barely a year removed from suffering a brain aneurysm. But in the age of #MeToo and #BlackLivesMatter, frankly, the gangster rapper turned super producer is a tone deaf choice for a league grappling with raging gender and race crises.

This year’s music lineup, with its cumulative 43 Grammys, puts most music festivals to shame and is already being feted as the best ever Super Bowl halftime bill. But apart