HOV DID

Now to our special report around the world
Many nations face corruption in the US
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 US foreign
Policy, which brings us to
This 1996 exchange
Between Louis Farrakhan and
CBS'S Mike Wallace
You got 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 beings 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 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 instalment 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 will
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 that 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
His an associate who served roughly ten
Years with a drug sentence
And now works at Jay's company and 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'll clash with those who
Make the laws he says as 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 it's
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 around and gave the right 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 it's like literally paper planes
The brand, so new clothes, like when you
Try on new clothes you're breaking in
New clothes them 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, GOAT
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 GOAT
But then makes a reference that takes us all
The way back to where we began
Next time we have a discussion who the GOAT
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 little
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 it 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