West Coast rap legend Snoop Dogg has joined forces with country singer Chris Stapleton as the pair cover Phil Collins’ 1981 hit ‘In the Air Tonight’ for NFL’s new Monday Night Football theme song.
American sports network ESPN recently took to social media to unveil the track and revealed that the jazz and rock drummer Cindy Black had also contributed to the creation of the exciting song.
Chris Stapleton and Snoop Dogg have worked musically with the NFL before, so this pairing was only natural. Last year, Snoop Dogg joined Dr Dre on stage for their epic Super Bowl half-time show that saw the likes of Mary J. Blige and Eminem emerge to perform their classics.
Furthermore, Chris Stapleton performed the American national anthem at the Super Bowl earlier this year before Rihanna hit the stage for her exceptional half-time performance.
This cover comes two weeks after the NFL revealed that Timbaland and Justin Timberlake would be curating music for certain ‘Monday Night Football’ games as the 2023-24 football season begins.
The selections and creations brought to us by Timbaland and Timberlake will be played during commercial breaks and promotional sports advertisements over the course of seven weeks. ESPN’s director of sports marketing, Curtis Friends, recently released a statement highlighting the importance of music curators for its programming.
Speaking on their selection for the 2023-24 season, Friends stated, “Football and music go hand-in-hand, like the iconic Timbaland and Justin Timberlake duo, who collaborate on music to near perfection.”
He continued, “ESPN’s Monday Night Football music curatorship is popular with fans given the access this partnership provides to new and unexpected combinations of music with sport. We’ve had Diplo, DJ Khaled, Drake, and Marshmello, and this fifth season, for the first time, we have two curators in Timbaland/JT [who] we know will energize all us fans for this NFL football season.”