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RAP MOGUL JAY Z has quietly used his wealth to post bail for people arrested in protests across the United States against police excesses, an author close to him claims.
Dream Hampton, a writer and activist who worked with Jay Z on his 2010 memoir “Decoded,” made the revelations in a series of messages on Twitter that she later deleted but were reproduced by the hip-hop magazine Complex.
“When we needed money for bail for Baltimore protesters, I… hit Jay up, as I had for Ferguson (and he) wired tens of thousands” of dollars within minutes, read one tweet.
She also tweeted that Jay Z and his pop superstar wife Beyonce wrote a “huge check (sic)” to support the burgeoning “Black Lives Matter” movement aimed at improving police treatment of African Americans.
Protests spread last year after a white police officer shot dead unarmed African-American teenager Michael Brown in the St. Louis suburb of Ferguson.
Major demonstrations, some turning violent, erupted in recent weeks in Baltimore after another African-American man, Freddie Gray, died from a spinal injury sustained in police custody.
Hampton later wrote that she deleted the tweets because Jay Z “would be pi-issed to see I was offering evidence” that he is taking action.
The tweets appeared aimed at defending Jay Z and Beyonce, who have faced accusations from some activists that they have only paid lip service to causes without tapping into the couple’s estimated $1 billion net worth.
One prominent critic has been Harry Belafonte, the calypso music giant who supported Martin Luther King’s family financially during the Civil Rights Movement.
In a 2012 interview with The Hollywood Reporter, Belafonte said that contemporary celebrities “have turned their back on social responsibility” and singled out Jay Z and Beyonce.
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Very sad that someones live can go so wrong that no one has noticed them missing for so long. And such an awful way to go. Poor guy.
They have missed them they just didn’t know this is how they ended up :(
Terrible state of affairs, poor man, obviously homeless person so nobody missed him…profoundly sad, may he RIP.
Unless it was the home owner who may not have had any concerned family members, either way a truly sad passing in such a built up area surrounded by people yet so alone :(
There was a time when community existed, people knew and looked out for each other.
Long gone NorahB,There is still some of us left though.Good to see you think same as i do :)
God bless you and your family.
Rest in peace to the poor man :( truly heartbreaking to think he lay there.Deepest condolences to his family :(
Hard to believe its been there for nearly 4 years. Not one nosey so n so had a peep in. Strange
sad, yet ridiculous, why hasn’t anyone tried to contact that person? no neighbours or anything?
It was a derelict house so maybe a homeless person. Perhaps he was on the missing persons list? We don’t know yet, but whatever the circumstance it terrible sad that someone should die like this.
Even if he/she was homeless, no one should die like this, as you said, however someone should check such houses, well everyone’s clever after such loss.
Of course Joanna, in the ideal world that would happen. Maybe even in a small town, but in a city it’s easy to become lost, too easy I suppose.
We will all know to morrow.. V sad..
Am sure he is in heaven for the last 4 years
Yeah…heaven…after what must have been a virtual Hell on earth. Good luck with that Mags.
If he was a homeless person, has no other homeless person tried that house? Can a house be vacant for four years without anybody checking who owns it?
The Family will have done peace as they have gone through Hell…
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