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Colin Kaepernick is a prime example of how blackballing can ruin a career. However, he’s taken this experience and become one of the most visible celebrity activists in the fight against racism.
But back when he could have played, he says one man tried to destroy his credibility: JAY-Z.
He’s detailed his spats with JAY before. Though, that feud came to a head when HOV mentioned Kaep in his viral freestyle over the summer.
“You picking and choosing the politicking as usual,” JAY rapped. “They digging deep for narratives, it’s embarrassing. They running out of characters, had to bring back up Kaep again.”
In response, Kaep indicated that JAY namechecking him indicates a “guilty conscience,” and spoke on the challenges of activism.
While promoting his new book, The Perilous Fight, he went on Trevor Noah’s podcast to reveal key details about him and JAY’s relationship.
“The NFL built up an organization called the Players Coalition to be able to end the protests… Explicitly giving them a payout,” Kaepernick said. “They came to an agreement. The next week, they stopped protesting… Part of what came in advance of that deal… ‘We need a Black face to help us lead this. They tried that with the Players Coalition. It wasn’t successful. And Jay-Z was the 2.0 version of that, in my opinion.”
The ex-NFL star then said JAY tried to reel him in.
“The next day… I get a text, ‘Hey, can you get on a call?’ from Jay-Z,” Kaep claimed. “It’s been a few years at this point that I’ve been trying to have a conversation… I was like, ‘I completely disagree with what you’re doing. You’re selling the culture out to people who do not care about the culture.’ He was like, ‘Well, the ink is dry.'”
Kaepernick thought it was done then, but after mentioning JAY’s “we’re past kneeling,” comments, his team got some concerning information that Roc Nation was allegedly trying to get the media to slander him.
“We had journalists call us and be like, ‘We got these calls from Roc Nation. Is this true?'” Colin Kaepernick claimed. ‘We saw a definitive effort to try to disparage me in that process.”
JAY-Z has not responded to Kaepernick so far.
