Snoop Dogg threw a lavish Christmas party during halftime at the Vikings game — and he was determined to invite everybody.
The iconic rapper must have known he couldn’t match the star power on display during last year’s Emmy-nominated spectacle from Houston with Beyoncé as the headliner. It would also be impossible to duplicate the magic of the 2022 Super Bowl Halftime Show in which Dogg shared the stage with Dr. Dre, Eminem, Mary J. Blige and Kendrick Lamar.
So instead, he decided to pad the numbers for this Christmas Day show. The U.S. Bank Stadium field was commanded by well over 100 entertainers, including ballerinas, gospel singers and violinists, almost all of whom were dressed in candy-cane colors.
The celebrity guests for the Netflix-produced special came from different fields. Martha Stewart introduced the concert in a taped segment. Huntrix, the trio at the center of the hit movie, “KPop Demon Hunters,” contributed an abbreviated version of “The 12 Days of Christmas.” Country star Lainey Wilson warbled “Santa Claus is Comin’ to Town” from a sleigh while commandeering the lap of a cowboy.
Andrea Bocelli and son Matteo, whose participation had not been revealed beforehand, dueted on “White Christmas.”
None of the numbers were that memorable. But the mere sight of such an eclectic cast made you giddy.
Dogg gave die-hard fans snippets of some of his biggest hits, including “Nuthin’ But a ‘G’ Thang” and “Drop It Like It’s Hot,” with (mostly) family-friendly lyrics. But his main objective seemed to be throwing enough at the Netflix audience to please kids from 1 to 92.
There wasn’t much mention of Minnesota (the show could just as easily have been put on in Detroit), but Dogg did drop a new number, “Christmas in Minnesota,” on Wednesday that had plenty of local references.
