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HOV DID
Jay-Z
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Now to our special report
Around the world, many nations face corruption
In the U.S., police often tell themselves a story about America being "exceptional" or superior to other nations
When the facts show there is American corruption in voting rights, criminal justice, housing policy
A political system that faces legal corruption with some of the most expensive campaigns in the world
And many critiques of U.S. foreign policy, which brings us to this 1996 exchange
Between Lewis Farrakhan and CBS'S Mike Wallace
(You go to Nigeria)
(Which is, if not the most corrupt nation in Africa, and it is)
(It could be the most corrupt nation in the world)
35 years old, that's what that nation is
Now, here's America, 226 years old
30 years ago, black folk got the right to vote
You're not in any moral position to tell anybody how corrupt they are, you should be quiet
When you have spilled the blood of human beingsโ
Hasโ, has Nigeria dropped an atomic bomb and killed people in Hiroshima and Nagasaki?
Have they killed off millions of native Americans?
How dare you put yourself in that position as a moral judge? I think you should keep quiet
(Can you think of one more corrupt?)
Yeah, I'm living in one, I'm living in one
I didn't mean to be so fired up (No, no, that's good, that's good)
That's my passion
Farrakhan was not correct about everything in his career, but those points resonated with many
As he dispatched the contradiction between America's reality, and perhaps her selective vision of herself
Corruption just refers to fraudulent conduct by the powerful
Which is pervasive across American history, and especially in the long war on drugs
So remember that exchange, we will come back to it tonight, in this report
About the failed and the often racist war on drugs, which started so long ago, that we've covered this story many ways
Tonight, we're going to look at it through the life and poetry of an American who lived it
And lived to tell about it, and he sure is telling
It's an American dream story and you may know some of it
But you don't know all of it, especially since the story's not over
And a new installment just came out heading into this weekend, as Jay-Z uses an unusually long four minutes of straight poetry to tackle the drug war, business, discrimination, and perseverance
The poetry is spoken over a beat in a song with other artists
And I think you'll see why it's poetry as we go through it now
Jay, also known at Hov, marvelling how he went from poverty to a billion and touting
How those others basically came from his same space or crib
Kanye, who worked with him as a producer and collaborator
Rihanna, who Jay signed early on, and LeBron, who's linked to Jay's Roc Nation company
So Jay's reference there to, "technically", is both the caveat, LeBron's done plenty on his own, and a double entendre for technical fouls in basketball
Jay opens there by asking forgiveness for making his first dollars off drugs, cooked on a stove, and notes he left thatโ
Drug or dope game with his record clean, turning the cocaine into champagne
And that's a nod to his ability to evade charges, a clean record gave him the lane to go from street coke, to the good life of the champagne
It's also a play on how he makes money off records, his albums are now clean records since he left the street life
While the alchemy of turning illegal coke into legal bubbly sounds like a turn on Jesus turning water to wine
And, it is, because soon after, Jay completes the parallel
Jesus turned water to wine, for Hov, it just took a stove
But think about it
There's nothing automatically legitimate about wine or champagne, it was criminally punished during prohibition
A policy that ultimately fueled gangs and violence and was the only constitutional amendment ever to be reversed, because both parties determined that prohibition was a messy failure
So politicians turned the alcohol back to a legitimate business, a slippery spectrum which Jay notes a few lines later in this poem saying "Breezy what the business is, we pushin' Fenty like Fentanyl, the 'ish is all legitimate, E was down ten for this"
And those lines quickly go from prohibition to a war on street drugs, associated with minorities, as mentioned earlier in this broadcast, to Fentanyl
A huge driver of drug problems and deaths, which politicians do not treat criminally, the same way they attacked the drugs that Jay or others once sold
I can tell you corporations have made over 10 billion dollars selling addictive painkillers, legally
So that's a contrast
Jay also invokes the fellow billionaire Rihanna, citing her Fenty fashion line, noting everything they produce now, that they "deal", if you will, is legitimate
And that other line I mentioned refers to "E," Emory Jones
He's an associate who served roughly ten years with a drug sentence and now works at Jay's company
Now look, many listeners may not know his name, but the story is something so many communities know
It illustrates how hundreds of thousands of others are locked up for nonviolent drug offences
The data shows the drug war is discriminatory, that entire categories of drugs can be arbitrarily banned, or allowed, often depending on who is really using them
That ranges from prohibition like I mentioned to the opioid abuse, which does not involve the same sentences dealt to Black and Brown Americans
Or marijuana, long classified as the most severe federal level, schedule one
But now, bet you've heard about this, marijuana has been shifted by politicians and voters, to legal, in 19 states and counting
But the warehousing of so many people for drugs that are now, right now illegal all over the nation, well, as a policy matter, it's absurd
Even before you get to race, it's also been documented as racist
Now, Jay did evade indictment for dealing illegal drugs, now he gets paid for selling legal ones, he founded the upscale 'Monogram' marijuana company, which is a play on the traditional term, 'monogram', a reference to selling a gram, and this poem marvels about living on both sides of the law in one lifetime, as this law around the country has been changing
I want you listen here as Jay conjures the image of a monogram joint in his pocket, while actual monograms are often embroidered on the breast pocket
Jay invokes being a writer, he's careful with his sentences, or bars as lyrics are called, because he lives now the legitimate life
Writing sentences, not jail sentences
Rap bars, not jail bars
And those jail bars come from the Draconian Laws, so he will clash with those who make the laws he says, he calls that clash with the plain term 'smoke', which is also a play on the smoke he now sells legally, it's deep
This is the kind of elevated prism for these issues
I can tell you we've interviewed many lawmakers who don't come close to this level of nuance about drug policy and its arbitrary and pernicious results
The same song then briefly explores how pain fuels growth
All this pain from the outside, inspired all this growth within
So new planes gettin' broken in
Highest elevation of the self
They done โ around and gave the right โ wealth
Now, those new planes could be just private jets
As Jay notes you would need to right people to buy them, the right brothers with enough wealth, or a double entendre there apparently, to The Wright Brothers who invented plane travel
The same line cites another Jay business, the 'Paper Planes' brand, which tees off a sorta' childhood imagination when you fold a paper plane
Now, am I reaching? Well, art is always up for interpretation, but I can tell Jay's long time producer, Young Guru, decodes this part of a verse in a new video that was just posted online
You got to realize that everything being said in here is a fact, bruh, it's not aspirational no more
New planes getting broken in. So, yeah, so it's like, it's literally paper planes, right? The brand, so new clothes, like when you try on new clothes you're breaking in new clothes
This man just ordered a new plane, but then it's new planes getting broken in, new levels of existence
All right, so if you're counting, that's airplanes, the planes company, 'Paper Planes', and planes of existence, quadruple entendre
This poetry like other great art, takes more time to fully understand than it takes to just see or hear on a first glance
That is why many people say Jay remains the greatest of all time, known by the acronym, G.O.A.T
And by at the end of this dense poetic verse, which just dropped on Friday, Jay admonishes his would-be judges or competitors as "donkeys", a play on G.O.A.T., but then makes a reference that takes us all the way back to where we began
Next time we have a discussion who the G.O.A.T., you donkeys know this
Forgive me, that's my passion talkin' (Haha)
Sometimes I feel like Farrakhan (Haha) talkin' to Mike Wallace (Haha)
I think y'all should keep quiet
That's his passion talking
Jay invoking that classic moment we showed you to offset his own grandiose talk
Asking forgiveness for being so strident, even as he meant every word
But notice what else he's doing, ending this poem just as he began it when he asked forgiveness for dealing drugs in his youth
And notice what else he's doing, a Farrakhan parallel can apply just to proclaiming himself the greatest, that would like, I think, a literal reading, or maybe it can apply all the way back to this entire poem about America's drug war and Jay's own path
Think about it; decades in, this billionaire entrepreneur with proven success, measurable success in music, media, sports, business, law, and politics, still finds he must explain basic facts about American corruption and racism to elite and White society, and many leaders and people still don't see it, or refuse to face it
That kind of entitled ignorance, which can cause real damage to real people's lives
Well, that might raise your ire, might get your passion talking
And if the facts are talking, well, it's a good time for people to listen
And then listen again, and make sure you got the point
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