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Jay-Z Preoccupies Wall Street
Other | Tuesday 11th September 2012 | Osh
One of our favourite rappers, Jay-Z, has found himself in a spot of hot water. Yes, Jay has opened his mouth and in true celebrity form, completely contradicted himself and his enterprise. Who remembers Occupy Wall Street? Good. Now, who remembers Jay-Z’s ‘Occupy All Streets’ T-shirt line? Yes, well it seems that his apparent support for the protestors of economical greed has been abandoned, ironically, for financial gain.
His T-shirts were designed with the vague promise of donating some of the profits towards the ‘Occupy’ Movement, however the organisers reportedly never saw any monetary compensation for the label’s exploitation of their initiative. Even more shocking, is the recent interview with the man himself and New York Times Reporter, Zadie Smith, where he renounced any support for OWS, quoting “What’s the thing on the wall, what are you fighting for? I’m not going to a park and picnic, I have no idea what to do, I don’t know what the fight is about. What do we want, do you know?”
Of course, there is the argument that in fact Jay-Z was merely latching onto the momentum of the economic protest with the benefit of his home community, Brooklyn, on his mind with youthful poverty awareness as his goal, however you must forgive me for taking the more skeptical point of view that perhaps this was an attempt at media attention as well as a brazen entrepreneurial venture. At least Mr. Jay seems to be calling it like it is, saying in his interview that, "This is free enterprise. This is what America is built on."
By Emily Kay
