The Game made an appearance on the I Am Athlete podcast, and the Cali rapper addressed his feelings regarding the Dr. Dre-led Super Bowl LVI halftime performance. He said that he felt wasn't included because of politics.

“The real reason I wasn’t on the Super Bowl is because I’m not a ‘safe’ artist,” Game said. “You don’t know what Game gon’ do when he get up there. They went with the ‘safe’ artists. I feel like this: the Super Bowl is in L.A. It’s a Dr. Dre Super Bowl, but it is Jay-Z. But Jay-Z understands the dynamics of West Coast Hip Hop very well, and I don’t think JAY-Z would’ve had a problem if Dre would’ve said, ‘We bringing Game on the Super Bowl.’"

The show featured Los Angeles-based artists and/or Dr. Dre-affiliated artists.

“Outside of myself, I also think that YG should’ve been on the Super Bowl. If it was a New York Super Bowl you might’ve saw Jay-Z, you might’ve saw Nas, you might’ve saw Mary J. and Fivio Foreign and Alicia Keys. We on the West Coast are the only niggas that have this crab-in-a-barrel mentality where we wanna keep niggas down or don’t do things based on what somebody else might think it looks like.”

"I was hurt by that,” he said. “And let me tell you, Snoop didn’t do me like that. Kendrick, it’s not his Super Bowl, it’s not Snoop’s Super Bowl. I talked to Snoop about it, Snoop was like, ‘You know, cuz, if it was my Super Bowl, we’d have been in that muthafucka.’ And that’s my uncle and I love him to death."

The Game shared that he believed he was owed an explanation.

“I feel like Dre should’ve called and said why. I would’ve understood that because I talk to Dre often. I just know if I was Dre and he was Game, he would’ve been up there. That’s just it, it’s L.A. And I am L.A. I’m in the streets.”

Despite the tough feelings, all these months later, Game insists that he's not bitter about the issue.

“Now, am I bothered by it today? I’m not bothered by it today,” he added. “I feel that it was an amazing Super Bowl and it was a win for our culture as a whole. I just felt like if it was going to be in L.A. like, n-gga, you know.”