As part of Oprah's OWN network's celebration of the 50th anniversary of the historic Selma to Montgomery marches led by Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., Jay-Z was interviewed on the current state of race relations.
Jay prefaced his words by saying his take on Hip Hop's influence on race is "interesting" and "strong." Then he went in:
"I think that hip hop has done more for racial relations than most cultural icons. Save Martin Luther King, because his dream speech we realized when President Obama got elected."Hov goes on to say that people all the around the world took to Hip Hop and since "racism is taught at home" it's very difficult to teach racism when "your kid looks up to Snoop Doggy Dogg."
"Before, people partied in separate clubs. There were hip-hop clubs and there were techno clubs," Jay-Z explains. "Now, people party together, and once you have people partying, dancing, and singing along to the same music, then conversations naturally happen after that."While there's no doubt a lot of truth to Jay-Z's words, the devil's advocate would argue that some Hip Hop -- including parts of Jay-Z's catalog -- has led to negative stereotyping of black Americans.
Listen to Jay-Z below and let us know what you think.