'There is clearly an agenda to silence voices in our community, a heavy right wing agenda.'
I’m Karlton, the Senior Editor and Operations Lead here at BuzzFeed, I work with the sponsorships and branded teams, but also write and edit a wide variety of articles.Over the past five years, I've also written and edited a variety of topics, from celeb interviews to politics and sports.
"There’s still the commonplace public perception that all billionaires are bad," stated Frazier."What’s the tension in that?" To whichresponded,"I got to give you the honest answer: There’s no tension. I don’t give a fuck what you say. You can believe what you want to believe. And people behave the way they want to behave—it’s not a dollar amount. It’s almost like a cop-out. You get to demonize this group of folks without fixing the actual system that exists, that’s in play. may enhance it or may cause you to act in a way. But you was going to act like that anyway." "I have to deal with the reality of the world, and I’m going to navigate this world not only for me but for a bunch of people that’s been disenfranchised by a system that doesn’t play fair for us," Jay continued."In order for us to progress forward, we have to deal with the world the way it is. Sometimes that means going out and starting your own company. Sometimes that means partnering with established companies because that’s the world that we live in. nowhere you’re going to go that Black people control distribution and control media. At some point you’re going to have to partner with somebody."Jay once rapped,"That guilt trip ain't gon' work, don't put your luggage on we / You ain't keep the same energy for the du Pont's and Carnegie's." Of course, wealth disparity and the overall rising cost of living over the last decade have opened up the conversation inthan those with a Black householder in 2021, according to the U.S. Census Bureau’s Survey of Income and Program Participation. This wealth was largely built through generations. Black Americans have been historically and systemically shunned from being able to construct generational wealth. Reginald F. Lewis is widely recognized asYou ain't keep the same energy for the du Pont's and Carnegie's," what he's saying is that white culture has the privilege of turning their nose up at immense wealth and those who have accumulated itbecause white elites have been running this nation for hundreds of years and used their wealth and power to build a country that gives white people advantages at every conceivable junction of American life. Essentially, the bank that funded white supremacy and white privilege came from generational or immense wealth. Now that Black and brown people are starting to enter these circles of immense wealth and power, and can use these tools to pour back into the culture, you may not see the same"billionaires are all bad" rhetoric from many Black Americans, who are just proud that, finally, some people that look like us are entering the upper echelons., and Jay maintained his innocence throughout the entire ordeal. Speaking with Frazier, Jay explained why he didn't settle the dispute out of court to avoid public exposure, and why this specific case angered him."That whole , that shit took a lot out of me," Jay stated."I was angry. I haven’t been that angry in a long time, uncontrollable anger. You don’t put that on someone—that’s a thing that you better be super sure. It used to be like that. You had to be super sure before you put those kind of things on a person. Especially a person like me. Even when we were doing the worst things, we had those kind of rules. There was a line:You hear those sayings, but those are the things that I took from the street. We lived and died by that. So it’s strict for me, like it meant a lot to me. I took that really hard. I knew that we were going to walk through that because, first of all, it’s not true. And the truth, at the end of the day, still reigns supreme."that said, in part,"The trauma that my wife, my children, loved ones, and I have endured can never be dismissed. The courts must protect the innocent from being accused without a shred of evidence. May the truth prevail for all victims and those falsely accused equally." On why he didn't settle out of court, Jay said,"I can’t take a settlement—it ain’t in my DNA. First of all, first I had to tell my wife. Let’s back up. I know the weight that this is going to bring on our family.I would die. If I settled—make that thing go away. And for me, it would’ve been cheaper? Yes. Cheaper, quicker, move on with your life. I knew what was coming. I wasn’t naive."It seemed like the entire world stopped what they were doing and tuned in to the Drake and Kendrick beef in 2024, which spanned several songs. Frazier asked Jay,"As a spectator, what did you think of the 2024 back-and-forth between Kendrick and Drake?" The mogul's answer was shocking, especially since he has been a part of several historic and high-profile rap beefs."We love the excitement and I love the sparring, but in this day and age there’s so much negative stuff that comes with it that you almost wish it didn’t happen," he stated."Now, people that like Kendrick hate Drake, no matter what he makes," Jay continued."It’s like an attack on his character. I don’t know if I love that. I don’t know if it’s helpful to our growth where the fallout lands, especially on social media. It’s too far. It’s bringing people’s kids in it. I don’t like that. I sound like the old guy wagging his finger, but I think we can achieve the same thing, as far as sparring with music, with collaborations more so than breaking the whole thing apart. It could stand it before because there was no social media. You had the battle and it was fun and then you moved on. Right now, I don’t know if it could stand it with the technology that we have."This is certainly a hot take from Jay-Z, whose beef with Nas is considered one of the biggest rap battles in history. However, now that he's much older and wiser, his opinion makes sense. The Drake versus Kendrick battle went beyond rap; it felt like an industry indictment of Drake and commercial rap, and it ventured into a conversation about what makes someone"Black enough." Both Kendrick and Drake also took shots at each other's families and kids, a move that would have landed several people in the ER back in the '90s and '00s when Jay-Z was at his rap prime. Although Drake has recovered commercially , his overall luster has been diminished, and his reputation may never fully recover. "It takes up so much oxygen," Jay stated about beef in modern times."It’s like trying to tear down people’s lives. I don’t know if it’s worth it at this point. I love the idea that we got so much music in such a short period of time. Just everything around it was like, 'Man, this is taking us a couple steps back.' We’ve just grown so much that—I guess I’m going to say it—I don’t know if battling needs to be part of the culture anymore... I hate that I have this point of view on it. I do. Because I know what it sounds like. It’s just how I feel about it."The mogul also added, “There is clearly an agenda to silence voices in our community, a heavy right wing agenda. And the culture is happily playing along in the name of this insane thirst of Stan culture to have something on the other side. We are in a strange time. I’m curious as to how this plays out!”For those who may not know, Jay-Z is responsible for picking the Super Bowl Halftime Show headliners. Frazier asked him,"What does it mean to you to be at the helm of a cultural event as important as the Super Bowl halftime show?""I think everyone should experience music in its totality," Jay responded."And for a lot of years, it was only one side of music that was being represented for whatever reason. We got the opportunity to create a more balanced idea of what popular music is today. I’m not going out on a limb. These are the most famous people in the world. I didn’t pick the indie artist that I really like from Portland. the number one streamed artist in theof the NFL amid the fallout from the Colin Kaepernick situation. Then, when he did a 180 and partnered with the NFL, many fans were. At the time, Jay-Z defended the partnership, saying, “I think that we forget that Colin’s whole thing was to bring attention to social injustice, correct? So, in that case, this is a success; this is the next thing. ’Cause there’s two parts of protesting. You go outside and you protest, and then the company or the individual says, ‘I hear you. What do we do next?’ So, for me, it was like, action, actionable item, what are we going to do with it? Everyone heard and we hear what you’re saying, and everybody knows I agree with what you’re saying. So what are we going to do? So we should, millions of millions of people, and all we get stuck on Colin not having a job. I think we’re past kneeling. I think it’s time for action.”former NFL safety Eric Reid. Reid famously took a knee right beside Kaepernick during the latter's social justice campaign to bring awareness to police brutality and systemic racism."Yes, he's done a lot of great work, a lot of great social justice work. But for you to get paid to go into an NFL press conference and say that we're past kneeling? Again, asinine. Players Coalition 2.0, he got paid to take the bullets he's taking now because we're not having it."However, since Jay-Z has started producing the Super Bowl Halftime Show, much of the anger and discourse around the partnership has died down. In the years since his takeover, Jay has selected only Black and Latino artists , allowing some of the most important musicians in the world to use the biggest stage in America to display their culture.When Jay picked Kendrick Lamar to headline the 2025 Super Bowl Halftime Show, many fans took that to mean the mogul was picking a side in the beef."I chose the guy that was having ayear. I think it was the right choice," Jay told Frazier."What do I care about them two guys battling? What’s that got to do with me? Have at it. They drag everybody in it, like everyone’s part of this conspiracy to undermine Drake, I guess. But, it’s like, what the fuck? I’m fucking Jay-Z! , a lot of loss, a lot of seeing things that nine-year-olds shouldn’t be seeing. We tuck it away and we bury it, and then it shows up in different ways. You’re a lot younger than me, but you’ll see it shows up later in life in different ways, and you won’t know why you’re acting out in certain ways. And it’s because of those things that are buried deep, and whatever triggers it can cause any sort of response in your relationship and the relationship with your family. At some point you got to figure out how you’re going to navigate the world."At one point, Frazier asks,"Do you feel like you are leading a charge for what the successful Black man is allowed to do?" To which Jay responded,"I even want you to take that out of your vocabulary... 'allowed.'" This was such a powerful moment in the interview.to do anything," Jay explained."In order for someone to allow you, they have to have authority over you. No one has authority over us. We exist like everyone else here. No one can allow us to do anything. But that word comes from a real space, and I want to eliminate all those type of words for us."using Jay as an example of the"failures" of Black culture in the late '90s and early '00s. There was a very public, ongoing feud between Fox News and Jay, and it seemed rooted in a distaste for Black entertainers beginning to command and mold pop culture on a commercial level that had not been seen before, outside of mega stars like Michael Jackson or Prince.Jay-Z famously signed J. Cole in 2009, but their relationship seemed rocky from the outside looking in since the beginning. Frazier asked Jay about that entire situation, to which the mogul stated,"The narrative is that we didn’t love Cole. No, we believed in him enough to let him find his journey. It took him a minute, but he found his way."For context, many fans feel that Jay-Z didn't seem to collaborate with or support J. Cole as other rappers might support their artists. A good example is Lil Wayne, who featured on endless Drake and Nicki Minaj songs when they were starting out to help boost their status. Jay has long been labeled as someone who doesn't support his artists, but he has always countered that by saying he wants those artists to have their own path without him being the"big brother" in the situation. With J. Cole, as the story goes, the young up-and-comer was having a hard time producing a single for his debut album, and Jay-Z kept shutting down the singles Cole was pitching. It took a while, but finally Cole and Jay settled on"Work Out," which helped launch Cole's commercial career. However, the back and forth of trying to find a single allegation strained the relationship between the two rappers from the jump. Frazier alludes to this when he asks Jay about trying to pair Cole with Stargate at the time. Stargate is a production duo from Norway that has crafted some of the biggest hits in hip-hop and R&B, such as"Rude Boy,""Only Girl ,""What's My Name?""S&M," and"Diamonds" for Rihanna,"Closer,""So Sick,""Sexy Love," and"Miss Independent" for Ne-Yo,"Irreplaceable" for Beyoncé, and"Black and Yellow" for Wiz Khalifa. "I was giving him a chance to take his talent and show it to the most people possible, but his way," says Jay of trying to get Cole to work with Stargate."I didn’t say, 'Here’s this record from Stargate and you putting it out.' Like I forced Bleek to makeBleek is my little brother, he has to listen to me. But for J. Cole, he has to find his own direction and I’m going to give him the tools. Stargate made humongous records with Rihanna, Wiz Khalifa... 'Black and Yellow.' Biggest songs in the world. You don’t want to go sit with them?As far as how he feels about Cole these days, Jay said,"I don’t have any negative feelings for him. I’m actually super proud of him and what he’s done.""The streets really wanted you on that Clipse album," Frazier mused. He's not wrong. Clipse, the rap duo that split up for 15 years, reunited in 2025 and released one of the best hip-hop albums of modern times. The group, comprised of Pusha T and Malice, went on to win a Grammy this year for"Chains & Whips," a single on the album that they originally asked Jay-Z to feature on ."Yeah, I was close," said Jay about featuring on Clipse's album."I think the first thing that I say, it has to be said from me. I don’t want to be so rigid with it, though. I’m going to keep that open. I’m going to take that back. I don’t want to be so rigid. But at that moment, I was like, 'Yeah, I want to do something.' But in order for me to move forward, I got to get this shit out."
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