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