Colin Kaepernick was in the spotlight over the past month a lot more than the public had become accustomed to in recent years.
Many of Kaepernick’s appearances came through interviews he sat for while promoting his book tour and new memoir, “The Perilous Fight,” which was released on Sept. 15.
The interviews provided an opportunity to hear from Kaepernick about multiple topics, including an apparent beef with rapper and business mogul Jay-Z, who took shots at the former NFL quarterback during a freestyle at his concert this past July.
During a recent appearance on “The Pivot” podcast, prominent “Breakfast Club” voice Charlamagne Tha God expressed a desire for Kaepernick and Jay-Z to settle their differences.
However, he criticized Kaepernick for what he called a “disingenuous” framing of his ongoing disagreement with the rapper.
“I don’t want to see Colin get thrown under the bus. I don’t want to see Jay get thrown under the bus,” Charlamagne said. “But I don’t want to see them throwing each other under the bus either.
“And I just think that a lot of the conversations that are happening right now, especially over the past week with the book promo, they’ve been a little disingenuous. A lot of that didn’t go the way Colin said it went, and it’s not as nefarious as it’s being made out to be as well.”
While Kaepernick may not have been addressing Jay-Z himself in the public eye, Charlamagne said that Kaepernick’s feelings were disseminated by people like his longtime girlfriend and partner, Nessa Diab, who hosts a daily show on New York City’s HOT 97.
“Well, [Kaepernick] was quiet but not the people around him,” Charlamagne said. “So like even when people talk about the freestyle that Jay-Z did, he was responding to Colin’s team, to Nessa.
“They were the ones talking and saying things. You had people from her radio station going on rants about it. So he was replying to that. It’s not like it just came out of nowhere unprompted.”
Kaepernick and Jay-Z have had a fractured public relationship since at least August 2019, when the business mogul’s Roc Nation partnered with the NFL, a move many of the former San Francisco 49ers quarterback’s supporters at the time thought undermined his kneeling protest and goal to rejoin a NFL roster.
When Roc Nation and the NFL partnered in 2019, one of the stated goals was to “amplify the Inspire Change platform priority areas identified by NFL Players, including Education and Economic Advancement, Improving Police-Community Relations, and Criminal Justice Reform.” Roc Nation was also placed in charge of running the Super Bowl halftime show and choosing the performers.
However, an indelible Jay-Z quote from a press conference with NFL commissioner Roger Goodell to announce the partnership caused a rift with Kaepernick that clearly still exists in 2026.
“You go outside and you protest; and then the company or the individual says, ‘I hear you. What do we do next?’” Jay- Z said in 2019.
The rapper added: “I think we have moved past kneeling. I think it’s time for action. 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.”
Kaepernick never returned to a NFL roster after the end of the 2016-17 season, when he kneeled during pregame performances of the national anthem to protest racial injustice and police brutality in the United States.
The former San Francisco 49ers star eventually filed a collusion lawsuit against the NFL owners for keeping him out of the league; an undisclosed settlement was reached in 2019.
In his July freestyle, Jay-Z accused Kaepernick of signing a non-disparagement agreement as part of the 2019 settlement. Kaepernick fiercely denied that assertion when he broke his silence on the freestyle last month.
Despite the contentious feelings between the sides, Charlamagne still holds out hope that Jay-Z and Kaepernick coud have a cordial relationship in the future.
“I don’t speak for anybody but myself. I’m only speaking what I know,” Charlamagne said. “And I know a lot, and I could say a lot more. But I don’t think there’s a reason to.”
“I think that I would love to see both parties sit down at a table and have a real conversation. And let’s just move forward,” he added.
