Now it appears Jay wasn’t the first hip-hop mogul approached by the league with a similar proposition Over the weekend, record producer and songwriter Bryan-Michael Cox aired his thoughts on the situation during a recent appearance on Loola TV. Hov’s name came up around the 14-minute mark of the conversation. The Grammy-winning songwriter revealed that Jermaine Dupri had initially been approached by the NFL with a similar deal less than a year ago. Cox didn’t go into any details as to what the deal encompassed. Negotiations were nipped in the bud after Jay personally called Jermaine and advised him to decline the deal. “I’m not saying it can’t turn into [something] good,” Cox said of the recently announced collaboration. “But we’re also talking about a guy who single-handedly picked up the phone and called Jermaine to tell him not to do it. When we all had that meeting with the NFL, all that sh*t was part of the same s**t.”

Cox held off on voicing any criticism against Jay directly, stating he would have to see how it 'unravels' first, although... ... he said that Colin Kaepernick and NFL player Eric Reid should be included in some capacity.



“I’m not going to condemn it or be like ‘That s**t’s wack.’ For me, I want to look at it intelligently because I know a lot of what was happening before and how we were engaged last year as a community,” Cox continued. “At the end of the day, [Jermaine] took a beating for doing the same s**t. And, I guarantee you they didn’t pay him as much as they are about to pay [Jay].” I'm Live via https://t.co/KJikcZcXvl @LoolaTv https://t.co/8UBOZkVKnS — Bryan-Michael Cox (@bryanmichaelcox) August 14, 2019















With that said, Cox’s words ignited another debate in the ongoing dialogue surrounding Jay’s NFL deal On Monday morning (Aug. 19), DJ Funk Flex said that he spoke with Jermaine Dupri, tweeting out that he had verified the revelation with Jermaine himself. Flex wrote that he’d phoned the So So Def CEO, who confirmed that a conversation happened as Cox described. “I just got off the phone with Jermaine Dupri,” Flex penned in all caps. “He confirmed that when he was working with the NFL last year he did get a call from Jay-Z asking him…’How deep are you in with the NFL?’ expressing …’That might not be a good idea.’”