S. Samuel
Weeks after reports revealed Jay-Z may not own as much of the Brooklyn Nets as once believed, renowned political speaker Dr. Cornel West wants Young Hov to clean his slate.
Reports of West’s need for Jay to be honest with his fans have circulated into the weekend.
Once again, folks are all up in Jay Z’s business over exactly how much of a stake he has in the Brooklyn Nets. Academic and activist Cornell West recently implored the rapper to disclose the financial facts. “Now I love Jay-Z, I’ve spent much time with the brother. He’s a lyrical genius. But we’ve got to tell him the truth. Tell the truth, Jay-Z. You tell the truth on ‘Reasonable Doubt’ in 1996, that’s what he started out with. He’s telling the truth, we love you negro. But we gon’ make sure you’re accountable too. All of us in this together, and I’m saying it out of love,” said West. (Atlanta Black Star)
Coincidentally, Jay reportedly took a jab at his haters and critics alike over his ownership percentage late last month.
During his third night of concerts at the Barclays Center in Brooklyn, Jay-Z took the time to speak to the crowd and address some recent criticism. In particular, he noted how newspapers have pointed out his minority ownership of the Brooklyn Nets. “Don’t let anybody diminish your accomplishments,” he said to the crowd. “It’s our motherf*cking time now.” He then told “every single person” to throw up their middle fingers and direct them at everyone who tried to hold them back before tearing through “99 Problems.” (Complex)
In August, New York Times reporter David Halbfinger discussed Jay’s resistance to get featured in a Brooklyn Nets feature.
“The first couple of calls I made was to try and see if Jay-Z would talk to us because that would take the story in a very friendly direction presumably. There are issues with doing that. The issue if you get an interview is how much do you allow the interview to shape the direction of your reporting? In this case his people said, “No way, no how!” In fact, they tried to shut the story down arguing that this is just a hype story and why don’t we wait until later when the arena is open. … It was very straightforward and exactly how the story turned out to be. … I also reminded them that I wrote the “American Gangster” piece. It’s very simple. He invested $1 million and that was out of a $300 million purchase price. That’s one-third of one percent, period. End of story.” (The Launch Magazine)
He also opened up on the controversy behind Jay only owning one-fifteenth of one percent of the Nets.
“When Mikhail D. Prokhorov (the billionaire owner of the Brooklyn Nets) bought 80 percent of the team what that does is squeezes down the 100 percent of all the other people into 20 percent. Everybody who had a piece up to that point had their stake divided by five. That’s it. Clearly what Jay’s stake is worth now, you could calculate it if you knew what the team was valued at based on Prokhorov’s purchase and then you could guess how much it’s gone up or down since then. But it’s just simple math. … ” (The Launch Magazine)
Check out Dr. Cornel West speaking on Jay-Z below:
