How Jay-Z Tapping Kendrick Lamar to Play the Super Bowl Reopened Rap-World Wounds Right and Left

But, based on this pattern of alleged grudge-holding, if Jay is really the petty king they claim he is, would he really give one of music’s top honors to the guy his last album lost each of its Grammy nominations to?

Nicki Minaj versus the Roc?

Honestly, this one is the murkiest, with no clear sign of when things went awry, or for that matter, why. Nicki gave props to Jay and Beyoncé numerous times throughout her career, and gave the latter one of her best verses to date for the “Flawless” remix. When they linked again for Nicki’s “Feeling Myself,” the accompanying music video, shot at and around Coachella, would seem to imply there was a real friendship there. Enough to, as mentioned above, do double-date dinners.

But breaking down the nuances of Minaj’s various beefs could fill a 30,000 word article, easily—one of her more current feuds is with Megan Thee Stallion, who is signed to Jay’s Roc Nation. Reading between the lines of Nicki’s select tweets, IG lives, radio rants, and diss tracks would seem to imply that she feels Jay and Roc Nation are boosting Meg at her expense, and in all of her conflicts, loyalty seems to be a running theme—simply working with someone she has documented issues with is seen as choosing a side.

Anyway, her falling out with the Carters was an educated inference that she made crystal clear this week in tweets that did everything but call Jay-Z and Beyoncé out by name. “One n-ggaa took a knee. The other n-gga took the bag,” she tweeted, harkening back to the initial mixed reaction to Jay and Roc Nation’s NFL partnership, which has been characterized as an image-maintenance move by the NFL in the wake of Colin Kaepernick’s ostracization. “Your hatred for BIRDMAN, Drake & Nicki got you punishing Lil Wayne?!?!!!”

Jay-Z has yet to respond to any of the backlash, criticism, and comments surrounding the Super Bowl decision.