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There’s been an ongoing conversation for years in America over the issue of wealth inequity, given that the richest one per cent possesses more than a third of the nation’s wealth.
Billionaire rap mogul Jay-Z is a proud member of that one per cent, and in a rare conversation on Twitter Space he insisted that capitalism shouldn’t be seen as a bad thing.
“Yeah, we not gone stop. Hip-hop is young. It’s still growing. We not falling for that tricknology the public puts out there now. Before it was the American dream. ‘Pull yourself up by your bootstraps. You can make it in America,’” he said.
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“All these lies that America told us our whole life and then when we start getting it, they try to lock us out of it,” he continued. “They start inventing words like ‘capitalist’ and things like that. We’ve been called ‘n—ers’ and ‘monkeys’ and s–t. I don’t care what words y’all come up with. Y’all gotta come with stronger words.”
Discussing his own “evolution” from impoverished rapper selling his CDs on street corners to becoming one of the music industry’s more powerful figures, he insisted that nobody should be made to “feel ashamed to be successful in a place that set up a system for us to be dead at 21… Y’all locked us out. Y’all created a system that, you know, doesn’t include us. We said fine. We went our alternate route. We created this music. We did our thing, you know, we hustle, we f—ing killed ourselves to get to this space. And, you know, now it’s like, you know, you know, ‘Eat the rich,’ and, man, we’re not stopping.”
Ok den pic.twitter.com/waMQkIldVm
— Rob Markman ? (@RobMarkman) September 1, 2022
Despite his assertion, Jay-Z was hit with backlash on Twitter; here’s a sampling.
No, Jay-Z, we didn’t make up the word capitalist to make you feel guilty.
We say capitalist to describe who owns capital and exploits our labor to get it.
It’s not guilt we want you to feel. It’s fear. We’re coming to expropriate what’s ours so we can build a socialist world.
— Danny Haiphong (@SpiritofHo) September 1, 2022
You can’t be serious Jay….. pic.twitter.com/likT4KsBvi
— MalikMeetsLik (@MalikRainey_) September 1, 2022
You make millions of dollars in America you’re a capitalist. Jay-Z too old to not know this, in the raps talking about buying paintings, properties and reselling them and making investments, this is literally what a capitalist does.
— Chelsea, duh. (@charmdiddy) September 1, 2022
I’m not even mad at Jay-Z for being a capitalist. I just wish he’d own it, stop trying to straddle the fence between that and a “revolutionary”.
— Pfizer Söze (@IceQuebe_) September 1, 2022
Y’all defend billionaires like Jay-Z because you think one day you too can be a billionaire and it’s not going to happen. You do not have the talent, connections, and/or the resources to do so. Stop living the pipe dream.
— Criserys I Targaryen (@TheBoyWhoWrote) September 1, 2022
if jay-z thinks “capitalism” & “eat the rich” are epithets to discourage black entrepreneurs & black ownership he should see how his wifes clothing line is produced
— BORG (@borgposting) September 1, 2022