

Her statements in Vogue were published roughly two months after the Roc Nation and NFL partnership was announced. For what? Who gains from that? Not my people,” she said then. Related Story NFL’s biggest storyline? Who will perform at the Super Bowl Read now Then there’s what she told Vogue in 2019 about turning down the Super Bowl once before out of solidarity with Kaepernick. Rihanna, a domestic violence survivor, believed she was being punished unfairly. In 2014, Rihanna blasted the league for removing “Run This Town” from a Thursday Night Football broadcast shortly after the Ray Rice domestic violence scandal dominated public conversation. He addressed the criticisms on Jay Electronica’s “ Flux Capacitor,” rhetorically asking, “Why would I sell out?/ I’m already rich, don’t make no sense/ Got more money than Goodell, a whole NFL bench.”ĭespite Jay-Z’s insistence that he didn’t need the NFL, Roc Nation’s partnership seemed to give the league cover for blackballing Kaepernick, while also making it cool to perform at the Super Bowl again. Given how outspoken he’d been on previous issues, Jay-Z seemed surprised over the backlash to his “we’ve moved past kneeling” comment. (He would go on to launch his own champagne brand, Ace of Spades). And when Frédéric Rouzaud, managing director of Louis Roederer, maker of Cristal champagne, made racist comments about hip-hop’s affinity for his champagne, Jay-Z pulled the bubbly from his 40/40 Club, and stopped drinking it altogether. When the Grammys ignored DMX’s unprecedented rookie year, he boycotted the awards.

So what are we going to do? So we should, millions of millions of people, and all we get stuck on Colin not having a job. What do we do next?’ So, for me, it was like, action, actionable item, what are we going to do with it? Everyone heard and we hear what you’re saying, and everybody knows I agree with what you’re saying. You go outside and you protest, and then the company or the individual says, ‘I hear you. “ ’Cause there’s two parts of protesting. “I think that we forget that Colin’s whole thing was to bring attention to social injustice, correct? So, in that case, this is a success this is the next thing,” he told reporters. Jay-Z commented on these concerns during the news conference about the partnership. After announcing the NFL partnership, Jay-Z faced intense criticism from many who believed he had turned his back on Kaepernick, former quarterback for the San Francisco 49ers, and the fight against racism and racist police violence the quarterback was protesting. It wasn’t the first time he had been accused of reversing course with little to no warning (in 2012, he came under fire for no longer supporting the Occupy Wall Street movement, despite selling “Occupy all streets” T-shirts). In an abrupt change of course, however, Jay-Z announced Roc Nation was partnering with the NFL in 2019. Related Story Rihanna’s criticism of the NFL goes deeper than her loyalty to Kaepernick Read now He once sported a Colin Kaepernick jersey on Saturday Night Live, and reportedly talked Travis Scott out of performing at Super Bowl LIII in Atlanta. Tell the NFL we in stadiums, too.” It wasn’t the first time the self-proclaimed “Marcy Projects hallway loiterer”-turned-Roc Nation head criticized the NFL on a national stage.

In the summer of 2018, Jay-Z rapped, “ Once I said no to the Super Bowl: You need me, I don’t need you. Roc Nation’s once testy history with the NFL is well documented. While fans have started discussing which songs she should perform and which guests should join her, others are wondering if this is proof that Jay-Z was right: We’re past kneeling. After she turned down previous requests to perform, this is Rihanna’s first direct connection with the NFL since 2016. Over the weekend, the Roc Nation megastar announced she was returning to music in the grandest of fashions: halftime at the Super Bowl. That might change soon, however, especially after the nine-time Grammy winner sent the pop culture universe into a tizzy with a single Instagram post. In the intervening years, the singer has built a fashion and beauty empire - landing her on Forbes’ billionaires list - but she hasn’t released any new music. Nearly seven years have passed since Rihanna dropped her last album, and almost every day since then, her fans have been asking for more.
