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Deaf rappers to join Super Bowl half time show
By Andy Malt | Published on Monday 7 February 2022
Two deaf rappers – Sean Forbes and Warren ‘Wawa’ Snipe – will join Dr Dre, Eminem, Snoop Dogg, Kendrick Lamar and Mary J Blige at this month’s Super Bowl half time show, providing sign language interpretations of the songs being performed.
The participation of Forbes and Snipe marks the first time that sign language has been part of the famous music performance that sits in the middle of the big old American football event.
“The doors to accessibility are busted wide open with something like this”, Forbes tells the Detroit Free Press. “My goal is to get out there, show what we can do, and have fun. And I want to open the door for other deaf performers”.
The booking comes more than fifteen years after Forbes showed Eminem a video of himself performing the rapper’s track ‘Lose Yourself’ in American Sign Language at a studio in Detroit in 2005.
“That was purely Sean Forbes trying to find an opportunity in the music industry”, says Forbes. “I just wasn’t sure what that was yet … So this is very much a full-circle moment”.
The Super Bowl takes place next weekend on 13 Feb.