Jay-Z Helped the NFL Banish Colin Kaepernick

The former quarterback caused a problem for the league—which turned to the celebrated rapper for assistance.

Yesterday the hip-hop mogul Jay-Z and National Football League Commissioner Roger Goodell held a joint media session at the Roc Nation offices in New York to seal a once-implausible partnership that isn’t being received as positively as both parties probably hoped.

I assume neither Goodell nor Jay-Z expected to be on the defensive once the NFL announced that it would give Roc Nation, the music mogul’s entertainment company, significant power in choosing the performers for the league’s signature events—including the coveted Super Bowl halftime show. Jay-Z and Roc Nation will also help augment the NFL’s social-justice initiatives by developing content and spaces where players can speak about the issues that concern them.

Jay-Z Helped the NFL Banish Colin Kaepernick

This wasn’t just another routine example of Jay-Z living out a lyric he’d rapped nearly 15 years ago—“I’m not a businessman. I’m a business, man!” Instead, the rapper faced questions yesterday about why he chose to collaborate with the same league that he’d publicly criticized for its treatment of Colin Kaepernick, the quarterback who hasn’t had an NFL job since taking a knee during the national anthem three years ago to protest police brutality and racial injustice.

This is the same Jay-Z who showed support for Kaepernick by wearing his jersey on Saturday Night Live. On his megahit song “Apeshit,” Jay-Z rapped this lyric: “Once I said no to the Super Bowl. You need me, I don’t need you. Every night we in the end zone. Tell the NFL we in stadiums too.”
Now he’s in business with the league. Jay-Z Helped the NFL Banish Colin Kaepernick