After rapper Travis Scott was announced as a guest performer with Maroon 5 during the halftime show for the Super Bowl month, he revealed that as a condition of his performance, the NFL had agreed to join him in making a $500,000 donation to a social justice organization.
At the time, Scott also suggested that he had “consulted” with former NFL quarterback Colin Kaepernick before accepting the high profile NFL gig, seeming to imply that Kaepernick was on board with the performance.
As it turns out, there may have been something of an exaggeration. As noted by TMZ, Kaepernick’s friend Ebro Darden, who works as a DJ at HOT 97, took to Twitter on Tuesday night to call out Variety’s report that Kaepernick approved of the halftime show.
Kap did not approve this bullshit! Get the fuck outta here…. https://t.co/yyMVAXQB3k
— El Viejo Ebro (@oldmanebro) January 16, 2019
Kaepernick retweeted Ebro’s statement, seeming to underscore his friend’s comment, and Kaepernick’s girlfriend Nessa joined in the fray when she linked to the urban dictionary definition of the word ‘sell-out’ to her Twitter followers.
While Kaepernick is not the only figure in the NFL who protested against racial disparity in the criminal justice system, he received the most notoriety for it when he began to remain seated during the national anthem during the 2016 football season and later kneeled during the anthem.
Other players and entertainers in the league soon followed suit, sparking a more widespread protest movement, which then became a political hot button when President Donald Trump suggested in 2017 that owners should fire players who protest.
Last year, the League attempted to end the protest movement by threatening disciplinary action against players who participated, and also stopped airing the national anthem on televised games. However, the issue has not gone away and as previously reported by multiple media outlets, several high profile performers including Rihanna, Adele, Cardi B, and Jay-Z passed on halftime headlining slots over the protest.
As well, more than 85,000 people have signed separate petitions on Change.org calling on Maroon 5 to pull out of their scheduled performance during the Super Bowl on February 3rd, or for Travis Scott and Big Boi to take a knee during their performance.
Photo: Travis Scott By Michael Vadon CC BY-SA 2.5 via Wikimedia Commons