For many years now I have heard people in the hiphop culture complaining because Oprah neglects successful African American rappers and never has them on her show. She had Ludacris on when he acted in Crash, and Kanye on to speak about his car accident, but Oprah is pretty open about how she despises rap and the rap culture.
This is understandable because, indeed, many rappers are still talking about drugs, violence, gangsterism. They use the “N word” (as Oprah put it), are derogatory towards women and are generally not the best role models. But many have however come from grassroots to great wealth and feel that Oprah should acknowledge this. Many still asked why she never had Jay Z on her show because his wealth extends much farther than just rap, as he is involved in several business ventures (yes, all legal).
Well, the moment finally arrived and Oprah had Jay Z on her show. I watched the interview on Youtube with a fifteen-year-old kid who was over at my house. In little intro blurb Oprah always does about her guests she mentioned that Jay Z makes 1 billion dollars a year, from his music alone! This does not include money made from his clothing line, other artists on his label, cologne line, ownership in the Nets (NBA basketball team), or any of his other big endorsements. That’s 1 billion dollars off his music alone!
The kid watching with me sat wide-eyed at that statement, but I saw he was still not grasping the fullness of how much money 1 billion dollars is. I asked him if he knew how much that was and he said enough for an entire lifetime. I said it was enough for several lifetimes. So, to put it into perspective for him I asked him what his favorite expensive car is. He said Lamborghini. I Googled the price of a 2009 Lamborghini. They are going for only 1,600,000 U.S. dollars. I divided 1 billion dollars by the price of one Lamborghini and well,
That means Jay Z could buy 625 brand new Lamborghinis a year, just on money from his music alone! That put things into perspective for both me and the kid!
That’s seriously messed up. That money could solve our education crisis, our health crisis, our housing crisis…