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Jay-Z has addressed accusations that he “sold out” with his recent NFL collaboration in a new song.
Shawn Carter and his company Roc Nation announced last year that they had partnered with the NFL as part of a new Music and Social Justice Deal, serving as the league’s “live music entertainment strategists”.
Jay-Z appears on ‘A Written Testimony’ the long-awaited debut album from Jay Electronica, which is out today (March 13), and during the song ‘Flux Capacitator’, the rapper addresses criticism he received after the NFL deal.
“Why would I sell out?” he raps. “I’m already rich, don’t make no sense/Got more money than Goodell, a whole NFL bench/Did it one-handed like Odell, handcuffed to a jail/I would’ve stayed on the sideline if they could’ve tackled that shit themselves.”
Listen to ‘Flux Capacitator’ below.
Upon the announcement of the new deal last August, Colin Kaepernick’s lawyer branded Jay-Z “cold blooded” for signing the agreement.
Claiming that the deal has now put Jay-Z at odds with supporters of Kaepernick – who was exiled from the league after taking a knee during the National Anthem to protest racial inequality and police brutality in the US – lawyer Mark Geragos said: “This deal between JAY-Z and the NFL crosses the intellectual picket line.”
“I can confirm to you that the deal was already done prior to any conversation that [Kaepernick] had with Jay-Z and he certainly didn’t have any conversations with the NFL.”
During a press conference announcing his partnership with the NFL, Jay-Z defended the decision, saying: “We forget that Colin’s whole thing was to bring attention to social injustice. In that case, this is a success. This is the next phase.
“There [are] two parts of protesting. You go outside and you protest, and then the company or the individual says, ‘I hear you. What do we do next?'”
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