Jay-Z isn’t just a businessman; he’s a “business…man,” and he doesn’t take too kindly to being labeled a “capitalist.”
Billboard reports that the billionaire rap mogul took to Twitter Spaces on Wednesday to share insight into his professional hustle and nonstop rise in business and music. Jay, 52, spoke candidly when asked about his success in elevating fellow Black billionaires like Rihanna and Kanye West.
“We not gone stop. Hip-hop is young. It’s still growing,” Jay-Z said.
“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.”
Jay, born Shawn Carter, was raised in a tiny apartment in Brooklyn’s Marcy Projects. The serial entrepreneur has used his music to share his rags to riches story, from selling drugs to becoming a chart-topping Grammy Award-winning hip hop mogul.
His hard work and efforts paid off and being married to Beyoncé only strengthened the Carter’s power and net worth. Now with Jay-Z added to the growing number of Black billionaires in America, he shared his newfound view on the American dream.
“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 said.
“They start inventing words like ‘capitalist.’ 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.”
But while Hova might’ve been trying to appear radical and encourage the Black community, many on Black Twitter mocked the Roc Nation founder for apparently coming off hypocritical.
“I know 10000000% Malcolm X would’ve hated Jay Z & other rich Black folks,” one Twitter user wrote.
Another referenced an old Tupac interview where the late rapper blasted America’s capitalist system.
“The problem with rich Black folks like Jay Z, Diddy, etc. is that they want to be revolutionary figures like Malcolm X, Fred Hampton, etc. But they still want to have their statuses as actual capitalists,” one critic wrote. “It just doesn’t work that way. You can’t have it both ways.”