Jay Z has been in the news of late because of his links to Barneys — the upscale department store chain that’s been accused, perhaps prematurely, of racial profiling after a New York customer who made a lawful purchase was stopped by police. It turns out this isn’t the only area where Jay Z finds himself accused of a double standard.
Back in May we rapped the rapper after he and wife Beyoncé spent their fifth wedding anniversary in Cuba. There they extolled the Communist island while saying nothing about a local rapper, Angel Yunier Remon — better known as “El Critico del Arte” — who was jailed for doing exactly what Jay Z does in his music. Cuban friends tell us El Critico is now near death, in a hospital after 19 days on a hunger strike.
“He asked that it be known that he’s committed to ‘freedom or death,’ which is his take on the Cuban regime’s official mantra — ‘socialism, homeland or death,’ ” says Mauricio Claver-Crone, executive director of the Washington-based Cuba Democracy Advocates.
So how about it, Jay Z? How about doing a fellow rapper a solid and asking Raul Castro to free a man who’s dying in a Cuban prison for doing what you do every day?