*Saul Williams is not fond of the Black Friday frenzy, so in an attempt to urge others not to participate in the official shopping day after Thanksgiving, he shared a clip on Instagram from an old interview in which he calls out JAY-Z’s idea of economic liberation.
In the clip, Williams references a lyric on Jay’s “Moment of Clarity” track:
“Get your freedom by any means necessary had now shifted to get money by any means necessary until somebody had made the mistake of equating money with freedom… So then you hear an artist like Jay-Z on ‘The Black Album’ say ‘Well, I couldn’t help poor people if I was poor.’ Correction: The majority of our elders and people that have helped us over time have not been able to help us because they had money. They helped us because they had vision and a desire to do so.”
Jay-Z caught wind of Saul’s critique and issued a response to the artist via email — read below.
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“Our fight for economic freedom is new,” Jay wrote in the email which was shared on IG by Williams on Sunday. “It’s not the same war that Harriet Tubman was fighting. If I used the same ‘weapons’ as them I would be shooting a musket at people with fully automatic assault rifles. Although I think it’s a must, we challenge each other, we should be careful that it doesn’t come off as judgment.”
Saul noted in the caption of the post why he still feels some way about the rapper’s stance.
“I wouldn’t characterize our fight for economic freedom as ‘new’,” he wrote. “There have been wealthy black Americans in every generation since the 1600’s, and in Africa since forever. During segregation accumulated black wealth and black-owned business were at a peak. Black newspapers, magazines, schools, record labels… Yet psychological freedom from hard taught capitalism is hard to earn. African billionaires, for example, have brought little relief to the continent of Africa. The seduction of power and the systemic constraints of white supremacy will take more than money to burn.”
Williams’ full rebuttal can be read in the IG post below, and peep the old interview clip above.
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