Jay-Z Responds to Criticism of His Wealth – “We Killed Ourselves to Get to This Space”

Jay-Z has hit back at comments criticizing his wealth and business ventures over the years. The rapper spoke out during a Twitter Spaces event earlier this week to promote his collaboration with DJ Khaled, “God Did.”

When asked about his history of bolstering financial opportunities for other Black artists, including Rihanna and Kanye West, Jay-Z responded: “Yeah, we’re not gonna stop. You know, hip hop is young, we still growing, and we’re not falling for that tricknology whatever, you know, this public puts out there.”

He continued: “Before was the American dream, ‘Pull yourself by the bootstraps, and you can make yourself…you can make it in America,’ all these lies that America told us our whole life. And then when we start getting in, they tried to lock us out of it. They start inventing words like you know, ‘capitalist,’ you know, things like that. I mean, you know, we’ve been called ‘n****r’ and ‘monkeys’ and shit. I don’t care; those words y’all come up with. Y’all gotta come up with stronger words.”

Defending the music industry as a whole, Jay-Z added, “We went our alternative route, we made this music, we did our thing. You know, we hustled, we fucking killed ourselves to get to this space and now it’s like, ‘eat the rich.’ man, we’re not stopping.” Check out the full talk below.

Jay-Z, Rihanna, and West all made their debut on Forbes’ billionaire list this year, alongside some of the world’s top earners.

In addition to Jay-Z, DJ Khaled’s 13th studio album also features collaborations with Drake, Lil Wayne, Rick Ross, Future, Migos’ Quavo, and Takeoff, SZA, Travis Scott, Gunna, 21 Savage, Kodak Black, Lil Baby, Jadakiss and a posthumous appearance from Juice Wrld.

Jay-Z (Photo: PRNewsfoto/Moët Hennessy)