JAY-Z headlined the first of two nights at the Meadows Music & Arts Festival in Queens, New York on Friday (September 15). As he ran through his performance of vintage Hov and new tracks from 4:44, he paused for a moment before kicking off “The Story of O.J.” to pay tribute to both Colin Kaepernick and the late comedian/activist Dick Gregory.
“I want to dedicate this song to Colin Kaepernick tonight,” Hov said. “I want to dedicate this to Dick Gregory. I want to dedicate this song to anyone that was held back and you overcame.”
During his 90-minute set, the Hip Hop titan also brought out reggae icon Damian Marley, who performed their collaborative 4:44 cut, “Bam.” He also dove into his extensive catalog for songs like “Niggas in Paris,” (minus Kanye West) “Big Pimpin” and “Empire State of Mind.”
Shortly after the June 30 release of 4:44, Hov dropped a video for “The Story of O.J.” and shared the video footnotes for the song, which explained the concept.
“We tend as black people — because we never had anything, which is understandable — we get to a place and we just think we separate ourselves from the culture,” JAY said in the video. “Like where O.J. will get to a space where he’s like, ‘I’m not black, I’m O.J.’ Like Tiger Woods will get to a space and think, ‘I’m above the culture.’ That same person when he’s playing golf and playing great, you’re protected, but when you’re not, they’re gonna put pictures of you drunk driving and embarrass you, and the world will eat you up and spit you out.”
Check out footage of his Meadows Music & Arts Festival performance above.
Hov a real one
Love jay
“they’re gonna put pictures of you drunk driving and embarrass you, and the world will eat you up and spit you out.”
Wow, just like happens to everyone, regardless of their skin color.
Nah, its deeper than that… Think about it.
I will give you a couple of examples. Tidal have filled 5 planes with supplies for Puerto Rico and HIPHOPDX have not mentioned any of that. TIDAL signed a huge partnership with Mercedes Benz a few weeks back and HIPHOPDX chose not to cover that. But every time a CEO has left TIDAL, you would be sure to find the story breaking on HIPHOPDX.
That is what Jay-Z is talking about. About how the white media (yes HIPHOPDX) will choose to paint you especially if you compete with them.
I guess I need to be black to read this article.
aint nobody giving a fuck about this bullshit, bringing more división in between black and white
Right because the “division” is happening because rappers are talking about it. Riiight. In case you haven’t noticed, this “division” has been happening WAY before hip hop. Roughly hundreds of years before.
There’s honestly no division here. Unless I’m reading a different article.
“We tend as black people — because we never had anything, which is understandable — we get to a place and we just think we separate ourselves from the culture,” he is doing the old drama about being black
Absolutely right. This idiotic notion of treating people differently due to the color of their skin – is VERY old and people are goddamn tired of it! Now if we can all stop DOING it, maybe people would stop TALKING about it. Not the other way around.
fuck jay z
Only weak Black folks are watching the NFL.
Damn look at all these agents on here. Got a bunch on commentary with no fukkin experience with any of the issues being talked about…..