It was a rejection of “the Establishment” immortalized on 2018’s “Apeshit.” A single from the seemingly one-off artistic collaboration of Jay-Z and Beyoncé billing themselves as “The Carters” for an album called Everything Is Love. But everything is far from love on the lead single, wherein Jay-Z proudly boasts, “I said no to the Super Bowl/You need me, I don’t need you/Every night we in the end zone/Tell the NFL we in stadiums too.” This last line being a reference to the couple’s then sold-out On the Run II Tour, which also took place in 2018. The same year in question that Jay said “no.” And was then swiftly replaced with the antithesis of a Black man that is Justin Timberlake (try as he did to constantly emulate Michael Jackson before going a more Bon Iver route).
And yet, just a year later, Jay would turn right around and bend over for the NFL by becoming the “live music entertainment strategist.” In short, the NFL needed a Black man to vouch for them among rampant player protests in solidarity with Colin Kaepernick. The San Francisco 49ers quarterback who famously took a knee during the national anthem at the start of the 2016 NFL games. His reason? A form of protest against racial inequality and police brutality in the U.S., which, apparently, Americans didn’t imagine could get any worse until George Floyd’s murder set off protests around the world in the summer of 2020. Kaepernick was clearly ahead of the “trend” that has now become constant, invoking the expected contempt of then-“president” Donald Trump, who declared in 2017 that NFL owners should fire any players who opted for such “disrespectful” “displays” during the national anthem. The NFL essentially did just that by letting Kaepernick go unsigned after that season. This was the very root of why Rihanna, who was offered to play the Halftime Show for 2019, declined to do so, citing her disagreement with the NFL’s “handling” of Kaepernick (that is to say, he was tacitly blacklisted from the league, and still remains a free agent).
Evidently, however, it’s all hunky-dory now. The NFL must have become anti-racist overnight just because they “allowed” Jay-Z to have a say in the musical curation. And, to be sure, he must have some sway over Rihanna, who’s been with Roc Nation for most of her career. But it has to be more than just “loyalty” that would make her do an about-face regarding her stance on the league. Of which she stated in 2019, after being asked why she turned down the “opportunity,” “I couldn’t dare do that. For what? Who gains from that? Not my people. I just couldn’t be a sellout. I couldn’t be an enabler. There’s things within that organization that I do not agree with at all, and I was not about to go and be of service to them in any way.”
Just three years later, it seems all those feelings have been put behind Rihanna, the same way they were for Jay-Z after he went off on the NFL in “Apeshit.” It would appear, then, that maybe there is a “right” price for selling out, even when the cost to one’s credibility could never offset that amount. Thus, apart from the many memes about how Rihanna will ultimately just be giving a makeup tutorial during her performance, another ribbing comment that stuck out was how, “Having a child so expensive Rihanna gone back to work.” Which sounds absurd when taking into consideration that Rihanna is a billionaire. But what is it they say? The more accustomed you get to a “certain lifestyle,” the more overhead you have. And it seems unlikely that A$AP Rocky is earning his keep at the same level, though he’ll probably at least show up as a “guest” onstage at the Halftime Show. Funnily enough, the year Rihanna first rebuffed the gig, she was replaced by, um, Maroon 5. A band in keeping with the league’s white supremacist history. This year, however, there seemed to be an inverse version of that swap, with Taylor Swift reportedly being asked to perform, but turning it down due to conflicts with her (re-)recording schedule. Which must be a real shame to all those rednecks who still see Taylor as an Aryan goddess.
As for Jay-Z, who initiated and sanctioned the NFL sellout train, maybe Rihanna justifies her about-face stance the same way her former “mentor” does: if you can’t make ‘em anti-racists, join ‘em. And maybe, just maybe, you can affect change from the inside. That’s surely the reason Jay-Z has his role as a “social justice warrior,” in addition to entertainment consultant, via the Inspire Change initiative, something meant to vaguely concern “education and economic advancement; police and community relations; and criminal justice reform.” And while Jay-Z may have once decried the organization that took decades to change the name “Washington Redskins,” he did technically say they needed him. To do what? Besides get paid large sums of money? Well, “to strengthen the fabric of communities across America.”
Doesn’t seem like the need to shill a correlating apparel line and profit from throwing concerts is necessarily the best way to strengthen any fabric (apart from what Jay-Z can afford to wear) or thumb one’s nose at the Establishment. Even though, throughout Everything Is Love, Jay and Bey take shots at the very institutions that they themselves have become (most recently in their capitalism-promoting Tiffany’s campaign, followed by Jay-Z’s ardent championing of said economic system). On “Nice,” Bey also insists, “If I gave two fucks/Two fucks about streaming numbers Would have put Lemonade up on Spotify/Fuck you, fuck you/You’re cool, fuck you” (the last line being essentially trademarked by Britney Spears in the “I Wanna Go” video). This from the woman who now has all her albums on Spotify. Because, sooner or later, even “rebels” have to pucker up for the system if they want to succeed within it. And sustain that success. So, in effect, what Jay and Rihanna are emphasizing is that capitalism, not protest, is what will save the Black community. That is, those who get recruited to be part of one of the many teams that make up what is among the most racist organizations in the U.S.
For, lest anyone forget, the NFL has never made any secret about its prejudices in hiring (or rather, not hiring) Black head coaches (though they’ll certainly make a big spectacle about interviewing thanks to the Rooney Rule). While seventy percent of the league’s teams are comprised of people of color, none of the majority owners are Black. Are you starting to get the cringe-y master-slave picture? Then, of course, there were a number of NFL owners who were also loud-and-proud Trump supporters at the time the Orange One was saying that any players that protested during the national anthem should be fired. So sure, maybe Jay-Z is trying to fuck shit up from the inside by, like, eventually becoming an owner, and Rihanna is just his fellow backpedaling ace in the hole designed to show Black people that it’s okay to trust and support the NFL.
Thing is, neither Jay-Z nor Rihanna is in need of the NFL to make a statement about “social justice.” They could and have already created their own offshoot platforms to do that. Which leads one to believe that, as usual, a matter of wanting to secure more dividends under the guise of “freedom fighting” ultimately proves that the Old Guard always wins, even when it pretends to be evolving. Yet there are still many who can’t forget that the NFL is but an extension of the systemic racism that has been embedded in the U.S. since its “birth” (again, what white people view as: when the Europeans showed up and slavery commenced).
