Since he retired from music a few years ago, Jay-Z has been content to sit back and occasionally pop up two thirds into someone else's pop song and make up a lot of words that rhyme about how brilliant he is.
But that's not enough for Jay-Z – he only wants to be bloody Angelina Jolie, doesn't he? After spending a decade rapping about what lovely shoes he gets to spend all his money on, Jay-Z is determined to help out those more needy than himself. And that's why Jay-Z has joined up with MC Kofi Annan and the UN allstars to try and raise awareness about the global water crisis. And quite right too, the lawn in our back garden is starting to look rather tatty, so imagine how bad the lawns in Africa must be.
Rappers aren't usually known for their charitable work. In fact, most things that don't involve smashing up an airport lounge or saying "motherfucker" a lot on BBC1 or getting shot seems to be a stretch for the majority of them. But Jay-Z isn't like most other rappers. Sure, he's happy to do all the superficial rapping work – like doing 30-second raps in every single Beyonce song ever and getting in fights with Cam'ron – but on the inside, Jay-Z is concerned about the plight of the world.
And this global concern has manifested itself – not in a Lindsay Lohan 'let's take a gun to Iraq' way – but in a 'let's team up with the UN and MTV and make a documentary' way. Jay-Z has announced that he is to make The Diary Of Jay-Z: Water For Life, a documentary about the billion people around the world who have trouble getting access to fresh water. The Jay-Z water show will document the rapper's journey around the world meeting the poverty-stricken masses affected by the clean water crisis and finding ways to combat it. Speaking at a UN press conference with Kofi Annan and some MTV bloke, Jay-Z said:
"As I started looking around and looking at ways that I could become helpful, it started at the first thing – water, something as simple as water. it took very little, very little to see these numbers. I figure that once I stumbled upon that, if the information was out and young people knew that these problems exist while we're having Poland Springs and Cipriani and things like that, that we'll get involved… In the beginning, when I was going out on a world tour, I was going out to play music. But I said to myself, I can't go to these places I've been and not go out and see the people that have been touched by my music for over 10 years. From that morphed, 'Well, I'm not just going to go there and, you know, rap to them.' I want to touch and help and maybe see what I can do in these areas."
Jay-Z also revealed that he plans to build 1,000 water pumps in Africa. But with all this sudden care for the world, Jay-Z runs the risk of actually turning into Angelina Jolie. We'll see the extent to which this happens in the future, as he takes a heavily pregnant Beyonce to give birth in Africa so that they can be called colonial overlords while one of Jay-Z's old flames recounts that sex with him was like having sex with a sofa.
Read more:
Jay-Z Gets Behind H20 – E! Online
[story by Stuart Heritage]