Hip-hop moguls yearn to belong to the 99 percent

01.01.70

BOSTON — Hip-hop mogul Russell Simmons defended fellow superstar Jay-Z from a firestorm of recent media criticism on Tuesday telling a small crowd outnumbered by reporters at the Occupy Boston site that the criticism of the celebrated rapper-businessman was misguided.

Jay-Z, aka Shawn Carter, the   frontman for the soon-to-be Brooklyn Nets NBA basketball team, has been blasted by Salon and others for trying to cash in on the Occupy Wall Street movement by selling branded merchandise with an OWS theme.

Simmon was visiting Occupy Boston out of sympathy for the anti-corporate movement that has swept America in the last two months and left certain self-made multimillionaires eager to highlight their social sympathies.

Simmons, co-founder of pioneering Def Jam Records label and chief of an entertainment business empire, insisted that Jay-Z’s loot from the now-canceled clothing deal would amount to “less than what it what it would cost him to buy one earring

[ Via: Salon | Read more... ]