On Sunday (February 13), Dr. Dre showed off his piano skills during his instantly iconic performance at Super Bowl LVI, leaving many people impressed by his talent on the keys. One fan who appreciated Dre’s piano performance was The Roots’ Questlove, who claimed he didn't even know he could play the instrument. 

The N.W.A legend stepped up to the grand piano to play some notes from Tupac’s  “I Ain’t Mad at Cha” before getting into his classic “Still D.R.E.” Legendary producer, Scott Storch, originally laid down the chords on the classic single, but Dre proved he could hold his own on the keys. 

Questlove took to Twitter on Monday (February 14) to admit he missed Eminem taking the knee because of how surprised he was about Dr. Dre playing the piano.

“Imma be real real honest,” he said. “I was so shocked Dr. Dre knew his way around a piano—I totally missed Em kneeling.”

When a fan pointed out Eminem was kneeling before Dre started playing the piano, he replied, “Lol, I guess I kept my eye on Dre. Gotta be the producer in me.”

Dr. Dre played an integral role in The Roots’ career at one point, Questlove crediting him for “saving” the band when their former label MCA was phasing out in 2003.

“So as promised, MCA imploded,” Questlove told Mark Ronson on his Uncovered podcast in May 2021. “We were without an island. The way that I heard the story went down was Dr. Dre, and Jimmy Iovine had a breakfast meeting. Jimmy basically let Dre control the MCA guillotine: ‘Okay, who do we save? Who don’t we save?’

“I remember, eight of us got saved: Mary [J. Blige], Common. I remember our name being last on that list. So, it was like, ‘Phew.’ The way that the email came to us is like that high school musical, you look to see if you made the part.”

Were you surprised at Dr. Dre’s skills on the piano? Stay tuned for more on this and other hip-hop news.