A summer freestyle has reopened years of tension between two men who were once publicly aligned around the same protest movement. Colin Kaepernick is now accusing Jay-Z of trying to repair the reputation of his NFL partnership, saying the rapper’s decision to bring him up again reflects a “guilty conscience.”
The latest exchange started after Jay addressed criticism over his partnership with Target during a July performance at Yankee Stadium. While defending himself, he referenced Kaepernick’s 2019 settlement with the NFL and suggested the former quarterback had taken a check that came with a non-disparagement agreement. Kaepernick disputed that claim in an interview with NBC News, saying he never signed one.
Kaepernick had even stronger words for why Jay mentioned him at all. “The backlash that [Jay-Z] received for partnering with the NFL and going counter to people’s interests in 2019 was a major problem for him, so much so that he’s still bringing it up in 2026,” he said. Kaepernick argued that the continued need to defend the deal points to a “guilty conscience” and an attempt to “reposition or reframe the conversation.”
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They Were Once A United Front
That criticism cuts directly into the history between them. Jay was once one of Kaepernick’s most visible celebrity supporters. He dedicated a 2017 performance of “The Story of O.J.” to the former San Francisco 49ers quarterback and later wore his jersey on Saturday Night Live. Their relationship changed after Roc Nation announced its 2019 partnership with the NFL, which gave the company a major role in the league’s entertainment strategy and connected it to social justice initiatives. Jay defended the agreement at the time, arguing that the protest had already drawn attention to injustice and that the next phase required action.
Kaepernick remembers that shift very differently. In his upcoming memoir, The Perilous Fight, he writes that Jay told him about the NFL partnership only after the deal had already been made. Kaepernick says he warned Jay that the league wanted a prominent Black figure attached to its response to the protests and told him, “You’re serving the culture up to a bunch of racists.” He also accused the NFL of viewing Jay as “the music guy” who could provide the Black face it needed.
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His latest NBC interview shows that resentment has not softened. Kaepernick called Jay “another player” in what he sees as repeated efforts to discredit him since Roc Nation aligned with the NFL. “He has built the alignment with the NFL, the NFL that has blackballed me,” Kaepernick said. The league has long denied that it blackballed him. He also accused Jay of doing “reputational recovery” rather than confronting why the partnership drew so much criticism in the first place.
Target has now created another point of contrast between them. Jay partnered with the retailer for an exclusive anniversary edition of Reasonable Doubt after the company drew backlash for rolling back some diversity initiatives. Kaepernick has chosen not to sell The Perilous Fight in Target stores and is instead working with the National Association of Black Bookstores for his tour.
