Jay-Z’s recently announced partnership with the NFL has been controversial, to say the least. Another fold was added to the story recently, when it was reported that before teaming up with the league, he advised Jermaine Dupri against agreeing to the same deal.
Songwriter Brian Michael Cox said of Jay, “We’re also talking about a guy who single-handedly picked up the phone and called Jermaine to tell him not to do it.” Funkmaster Flex later tweeted, “”I JUST GOT OFF THE PHONE WITH JERMAINE DUPRI. HE CONFIRMED THAT WHEN HE WAS WORKING WITH THE NFL LAST YEAR HE DID GET A CALL FROM JAYZ ASKING HIM.. ‘HOW DEEP ARE U IN WITH THE NFL?’ EXPRESSING… ‘THAT MIGHT NOT BE A GOOD IDEA.'”
Now Dupri himself has decided to bring clarity to these stories, and he says that they’re just not true. In a new interview with Big Tigger of Atlanta’s V-103, Dupri said he did talk with Jay, but that the conversation wasn’t about what everybody seems to think. Dupri said, “He and I never had a conversation where he told me, ‘Don’t do what you’re doing.’ What our conversation was was that, ‘You know what side I’m on, I understand what you’re doing.’ That’s what the conversation was.”
Dupri did team up with the NFL himself, but it was for a series of free shows held in Atlanta’s Centennial Olympic Park before last season’s Super Bowl, not a deal at the scale of Jay-Z’s partnership with the league.
Watch the full Dupri interview below.
