14 DAY TRIAL // Last year, as the Occupy Wall Street movement had already spread to many major cities around the world, rapper Jay-Z appeared to show his support for the 99 percent by coming out with a special Rocawear line. He now explains that he was never a true believer in the cause.
As it happens, the Rocawear line was also pulled from stores after it emerged that Jay was keeping all the profits, thus getting even richer on a cause that was not for the 1 percent, of which he is clearly a part of with his fortune estimated at $460 million (€360.2 million).
In a new interview cited by The Huffington Post, the rapper and businessman criticizes the movement saying it never had a firm stated mission.
Because it chose to generalize on who the 1 percent it vilified was, the rapper could not pledge his allegiance to the cause.
The Wall Street Movement went against everything America stood for, he explains.
“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,” Jay is believed to have told good friend Russell Simmons when he was asked to join the cause.
It could very well be that Jay is happy now that he didn’t.
“When you just say that ‘the 1 percent is that,’ that’s not true,” the rapper explains in the new interview,
“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,” he says.
However, he draws the line where he’s concerned, which is the one thing that the movement did not do.
“Not being an entrepreneur. This is free enterprise. This is what America is built on,” Jay explains.
As we also noted at the time, the reason Jay pulled the Rocawear “Occupy All Streets” line from stores was that word got out in the media that proceeds from it went straight into his pockets and not to some charitable organization or another.
In other words, while “posing” as a supporter for the cause by wearing the t-shirts, Jay was actually making money.