UPDATE: EA Sports have apologised and claimed that the omission was a mistake. They claim that they didn’t realise that not having the rights to include Colin Kaepernick’s name in their game didn’t extend to the soundtrack. The Big Sean lyric will be corrected in an update in a few days. Check out the full statement below.
JUST IN: EA Sports says it didn’t mean to omit Colin Kaepernick’s name in YG’s song it licensed for use in Madden ‘19. Will add his name back in update. pic.twitter.com/ck8UhxI1fu
— Darren Rovell (@darrenrovell) August 3, 2018
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Madden 19 isn’t officially worldwide out for another week or so but of course some early copies of the game are making their rounds and earlier today some fans noticed something interesting about one of the songs on the soundtrack.
YG’s ‘Big Bank‘ single with Big Sean, 2 Chainz and Nicki Minaj is on the game and on the song, Sean raps the following:
“You boys all cap, I’m more Colin Kaepernick”
It seems that a party involved (EA, the NFL or the NFLPA) have decided to mute Kaepernick’s name from the bar, with no doubt due to the stance he has taken on the national anthem and his absence from the league for a while now. Hear the muted version of the lyric below:
bad enough @Kaepernick7 still not signed, but now they even edit his name out in this year’s @EAMaddenNFL during @BigSean verse, smh pic.twitter.com/3nvkB26z5r
— Mr. Changing Lives (@jeanclervil) August 2, 2018
Sean has responded on Twitter, saying that he is disappointed and appalled at the censorship and clarified that no-one on his side approved the newer version.
It’s disappointing and appalling @NFL & @EA took @Kaepernick7’s name out of my verse on Big Bank for Madden 19, like it was a curse word. When he's not a curse, he's a gift! Nobody from my team approved any of this.
— Sean Don (@BigSean) August 2, 2018
We talked about the necessity of context in censorship last year.
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