Jay-Z's new song "Open Letter," a response to criticism over his and Beyonce's trip to Cuba, has racked up nearly 500,000 listens in just a few hours. Now we know that some of those plays came from the White House and the reporters that cover it.
During a White House press briefing earlier today, Politico reporter Donovan Slack asked White House Press Secretary Jay Carney whether President Obama gave Jay-Z and Beyoncé clearance for their travel, based off a lyric from the rapper's just-released song "Open Letter."
After reciting the lyric (“I turned Havana into Atlanta... Boy from the hood/ I got White House clearance... Obama said, 'Chill you gonna get me impeached/ You don’t need this shit anyway, chill with me on the beach'"), Slack asked Carney if Obama did indeed give Jay-Z clearance.
After Jay-Z announced the creation of Roc Nation Sports in partnership with the powerful Creative Artists Agency and the signing of New York Yankees second baseman Robinson Cano last week, it seemed only a matter of time until the legendary rapper would have to address the prospective conflict between his new venture and his role as a part-owner of the NBA's Brooklyn Nets. Since NBA rules preclude individuals affiliated with player representation companies from having ownership stakes with NBA teams, something would have to give ... and it began to Tuesday afternoon, when Yahoo! Sports NBA columnist Adrian Wojnarowski reported that Jay-Z, whose real name is Shawn Carter, has begun the process of selling off his Nets shares so that he could extend Roc Nation Sports' reach into professional basketball.
Since that report, lots of folks have decided to resume making little jokes about the relatively small size of the stake Jay's selling, which was famously revealed to be "a scant one-fifteenth of one percent"by the New York Times last August and has since been revealed to be worth around $350,000. That's still more of an NBA team than I own, so I will take no shots at Hova, but others haven't felt as charitable (or, perhaps, just own way more of an NBA team than I do), and this — in addition to people criticizing Jay and his wife, Beyoncé, for their recent trip to Cuba — led to the multiplatinum recording artist getting all steamed, recording an angry missive and releasing it through his Life + Times website.
In the track, titled "Open Letter," he vents over a beat produced by Timbaland and Swizz Beatz (clearly forsaking his New York Knicks family to work with the Nets part-owner) about, well, a bunch of stuff, including the response to his reported Nets divestment. You can listen to "Open Letter" after the jump — please be aware, though, that it includes not-suitable-for-work language, so maybe plug the headphones in and keep it away from the kiddies.
Carney brushed off the question with sarcasm: "I guess nothing rhymes with Treasury... because Treasury offers and gives licenses for travel, as you know, and the White House has nothing to do with it."
"I am absolutely saying that the White house from the President on down had nothing to do with anybody's travel to Cuba that is something that Treasury handles.," he continued.
And if Carney didn't make himself clear before, he shut down the conversation by denying White House approval straight forward.
"It's a song, Donovan. The President did not communicate with Jay-Z over this trip."
Following the presser, Slack tweeted some suggestions for words that rhyme with Treasury.
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