Per the New York Daily News:
Jay-Z says Occupy Wall Street had a fatal flaw: Its 99 messages.
The legendary rapper, in a new interview, says he never threw his support behind the protest movement because he didn’t understand what it stood for.
“What’s the thing on the wall, what are you fighting for?” Jay-Z told the New York Times in a wide-ranging interview.
Jay-Z then went onto make an argument that one isn’t supposed to make using words that one isn’t supposed to use:
Jay-Z, whose real name is Shawn Carter, transformed himself from a poverty-stricken crack dealer to a multimillionaire music mogul and co-owner of the Brooklyn Nets.
He said Occupy Wall Street’s blanket demonization of the rich is un-American.
“I think all those things need to really declare themselves a bit more clearly because when you just say that ‘the 1 percent is that,’ that’s not true,” he said.
“Yeah, the 1 percent that’s robbing people, and deceiving people, these fixed mortgages and all these things, and then taking their home away from them, that’s criminal, that’s bad.
“Not being an entrepreneur. This is free enterprise. This is what America is built on.”
In criticizing Occupy, Jay-Z breaks with other 1 percent rappers, Kanye West and Lupe Fiasco. Last year, both men took time out from throwing money around and drinking Cristal on camera to join with those railing against wealth inequality and the glorification of consumerism.