During a “4:44” concert on Veteran’s Day weekend, JAY-Z threw his full support behind Colin Kaepernick and others in the NFL protesting during the national anthem.
The rapper dedicated a song to anyone who had experienced “any type of discrimination.”
He went on to address people dissing the national anthem protests, saying, “When people are kneeling and putting their fists up, what they’re doing is not about the flag. It’s about justice. It’s about injustice.”
“And that’s not a black or white thing; it’s a human issue,” JAY-Z continued. “Everybody should feel the same way.”
“If your 16-year-old child left the house, didn’t come back? Everyone should be affected,” he added. “That’s not a Black or white issue; that’s a human issue. That’s a young person who lost their life senselessly.”
“And Black people in particular, we gotta get our sh*t together,” JAY-Z said, urging the Black community not to stay home but to come out and “be working together,” because, “We’re not second-class citizens to anybody.”
JAY-Z hasn’t been quiet about his support for Kaepernick and the NFL protests and has even publicly worn Kaepernick jerseys to show that support, so it’s no surprise that he would speak so passionately on this issue now.