Jay Z slams Occupy Wall Street protests

[pwaldo]

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/arti...-protests.html

Jay Z said that he never supported the Occupy Wall Street movement because he thought that the group had too many issues and not enough direction.

The rapper's criticism of the political protests seems particularly striking considering he briefly sold t-shirts that played on the cause's name but didn't donate anything back to the organizers.

In an interview with British author Zadie Smith for The New York Times, the rapper said that he never supported the wealth inequality protests in spite of his attempts to cash in on their popularity.

He said that after producer Russell Simmons, who was an ardent Occupy-supporter, called him to enlist 'Hova' to make an appearance at the protest tent grounds, he rejected the offer on the grounds that he didn't know what the movement was about.

'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?' he supposedly told Simmons at the time.

During The Times interview, the rapper whose real name is Shawn Carter, said that once he got a sense of what the Occupy movement stood for, he took issue with the portion of their argument that derides the success of the wealthy '1 percenters'.

'I think all those things need to really declare themselves a bit more clearly. Because when you just say that "the 1 per cent is that," that’s not true,' he said.

'Yeah, the 1 per cent 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.'

Considering Jay Z has worked his way up from living in poverty and working as a drug dealer to accruing an estimated personal wealth of $460million, it comes as no surprise that he takes issue with slamming of the self-made-man.

[duwal]

really??? that is the definition of slamming now? he says the group had too many issues and not enough direction and somehow people call THAT slamming someone or a group?? seems like he would have been backing them if they had a single purpose but as we've seen from some of the protests the subjects being brought up are diverse in every crowd.