S. Samuel
Rap mogul Jay-Z's image has been targeted by the Miami Police Department in an online gang activity poster.
The rapper, who is also married to R&B superstar Beyonce Knowles, is featured as a stereotypical illustration of a gang member.
What do gang members look like? A bestselling rapper and music mogul with 10 Grammys under his belt and millions of dollars in his pocket according to the front page of the Miami Police Department’s website. The Miami New Times found two graphics of Jay-Z that the Miami Police Department seems to have used for a banner on its website. (Gawker)
Following today’s reports, the Miami Police Department has since removed the poster.
We’re still waiting for official comment from the Miami Police Department as to why they think Jay-Z makes a good criminal prototype. But after a blog we wrote this morning was “forward[ed] to the IT commander”, according to spokesperson Napier Velasquez, the department has removed the offending art– a painting of five apparent gang-members, two of which were modeled after the rapper– from the gang unit banner on their website. (Miami New Times)
Aside from winning multiple Grammy awards, Jay was recently featured on the cover of Forbes magazine.
The richest man in the world and the richest man in Hip Hop cover Forbes magazine and sit down together to discuss success, coming up and giving back. Jay-Z also speaks on buying The Blueprint 3 album back from Def Jam, revealing that before he went into the meeting to buy his rights back he actually lost his iPod that contained the finished album and lived in fear that the album would leak before he even got to buy it back. (Soul Culture)
Over the summer, Jay made headlines after being named Forbes’ top Hip-Hop Cash King of 2010.
Forbes released their annual hip-hop cash king list today and at the top of the pile is Jay-Z. They estimate Hov grossed $63 million last year. Rounding out the top five are Dr. Dre ($17 million), Lil Wayne ($20 million), Akon ($21 million) and Diddy ($30 million) (Rap Radar)
Check out some past Jay-Z footage below:
