Remember when every rapper and their mom was dissing Oprah for shunning hip-hop artists on her show? Well, one bigwig who stayed out of the fray during the entire saga was Jay-Z. His silence on the issue seems to have paid off, as Jay-Z and Oprah have now collaborated on a project.
Jay-Z hit up his old Brooklyn stomping grounds, and he brought talk-show mogul Oprah Winfrey along for the ride. The odd pair drew stares from fans who weren't sure what to make of them. The duo spent time in the Marcy Housing projects where Hov grew up and word on the street is that they're filming an episode of The Oprah Winfrey Show.
Oprah's feud with hip-hop is well documented. She's drawn ire from the likes of Ludacris, Ice Cube and 50 Cent, all of whom expressed displeasure towards Winfrey for not giving them an outlet on her show.
However, Oprah has denied such allegations, saying, "I respect other people's rights to do whatever they want to do in music and art and whatever. So I am my own person, they are their own people," she said in an interview. "I respect their rights. I am a woman who has worked very hard for my status in the world and as a human being. I don't want to be marginalized by music or any form of art." She added, "I feel rap is a form of expression, as is jazz. I'm not opposed to rap. I'm opposed to being marginalized as a woman."
At the end of the day, Oprah's beef with hip-hop appears to be an issue of class, not genre. Sure, Cube and Luda are successful in their own rights, but Jay-Z has attained a certain level of financial success that most rappers can only dream of. We're talking about a guy who has topped Forbes' Hip-Hop Cash Kings list twice in the last 3 years.
For the first time, I actually hope I'm wrong on this and it all turns out to be her way of reaching out to the have-nots. I can dream, right?
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In my opinion Oprah is quite simply the greatest person to ever live. But what hip-hop fans have to understand about Oprah is that her top priority is promoting POSITIVE images of black people. That’s why she’s constantly promoting Toni Morrison and Maya Angelou and Sydnie Potier. That’s why she campaigned for Barack Obama to be president. That’s why she built the most expensive school in all of Africa where she adopted 300 black daughters. Oprah loves to see blacks succeed.
Some hip hop artists however spend all their time promoting NEGATIVE images of blacks portraying black men as thugs and black women as whores and they do it all so they can sell more music to white boys in the suburbs. This goes against Oprah’s goal of promoting POSITIVE images for blacks and women so obviously there’s going to be a bit of tension.
But at the same time Oprah admires many hip hop artists such as Kanye West & Will Smith who have been on her show many times. And no black person in the history of America has done more to reach out to have nots than Oprah who has personally donated over $300 million of her own hard earned money to charity according to Business Week.
Yeah, Will Smith is the man.
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