Jay Z says capitalist is a new ‘slur’ in rant about wealth in the US

Jay-Z has claimed that “capitalist” is a derogatory term invented to bring down the black community.

On Thursday (1 September), the 52-year-old rapper participated in Twitter Space hosted by journalist Rob Markman to promote his recent song “God Did” with DJ Khaled.

During the discussion, Jay-Z addresses those who have criticised his business ventures.

“We not gone stop,” he said. “Hip-hop is young. We still growing. We not falling for that tricknology the public puts out there now.

“Before it was the American Dream. ‘Pull yourself up by your bootstraps. You can make it in America’ – all these lies that America told us our whole life. And then when we start getting it, they try to lock us out of it. They start inventing words like ‘capitalist’ and things like that.

“We’ve been called n****s and monkeys and s***. I don’t care what words y’all come up with. Y’all gotta come with stronger words.”

Defending himself and the music industry, Jay-Z added: “We went our alternative route, we made this music, we did our thing. You know, we hustled, we f***ing killed ourselves to get to this space and now it’s like, ‘eat the rich.’ Man, we’re not stopping.”

Soon after these comments, many people were confused by Jay-Z’s belief that “capitalist” is a “slur.”

Rolling Stone journalist Andre Jee wrote: “Jay-Z has spent most of his career being revered while rapping about being hated, I feel like implying people ‘made up’ the term capitalist just to hate on him is endgame egoism for him.”

Another person added: “Jay-Z talking a bunch of nonsense. Man implied that ‘capitalist’ and ‘eat the rich’ are words/terms that were created to keep black people down. Very unserious.”

“Jay-Z attaching himself to Fred Hampton and Che Guevara just to say calling people capitalist is a slur or being anti capitalist is a trick, is a top five capitalist moment,” another said.

Earlier this year, the 4:44 rapper was criticised after NFL announced a multi-year deal with his entertainment agency Roc Nation.

The deal allowed Roc Nation to control NFL’s music and social justice programmes the same NFL that Jay-Z mentioned in “Apes***”, his joint song with wife Beyoncé, when he sang: “I said no to the Super Bowl, you don’t need me, I don’t need you.”

The Independent’s Sadiyah Bashir wrote that “those lyrics, at the time so seemingly revolutionary in their claims that a black music mogul didn’t need an institution as huge as the NFL to elevate his worth by association, started ringing rather hollow”.

She added: “It’s not lyrical hypocrisy that has most people upset about the deal, though. Instead, it’s the fact that former NFL star Colin Kaepernick was blackballed after protesting the deaths of black Americans killed by the police. How can hip-hop’s first billionaire justifiably work with an organisation which destroyed the career of a racial justice activist?”

Earlier this year, Jay-Z also came under fire for a financial literacy programme that he launched with Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey called The Bitcoin Academy for residents of Brooklyn’s Marcy Houses.