Jay-Z slammed all his haters in Congress in the best way he knows how— through song. The artist released his new track “Open Letter” Thursday morning, recorded just the night before, to tell off all the Republican politicians questioning the legitimacy of his trip to Cuba with his wife Beyoncé.
Diverging from his usual beat of pimps, hoes, and the hood, the recording artist chose to rap about how “politicians never did sh-t for me except lie to me, distort history.”
“They wanna give me jail time and a fine — Fine, let me commit a real crime,” he continues.
Referring to his recent trip to Havana, Cuba, Jay-Z claims during the song that he “done turned Havana into Atlanta”— whatever that means.
Jay-Z, who has a very publicized friendship with the Obamas, also referenced the president during “Open Letter.”
” I got White House clearance…Obama said, ‘Chill you’re going to get me impeached. You don’t need this sh-t anyway, chill with me on the beach’,” he raps.
But according to White House press secretary Jay Carney, the Treasury Department — not the White House — approved Jay-Z’s trip to Cuba.
“I guess nothing rhymes with Treasury,” Carney said during his daily briefing Thursday. “It’s a song.The president did not communicate with Jay-Z over this trip.”
Last week, Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen (R-Fla.) and Rep. Mario Diaz-Balart (R-Fla.) wrote to the Treasury Department demanding to know how the Carters managed to make a trip to Havana, Cuba for their fifth anniversary with the U.S. Trade Embargo on Cuba that bans tourist trips still in place. After the two members of Congress from Florida brought attention to the issue, other politicians, including Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) also started to scratch their heads about why the trip was approved.
The Treasury Department finally wrote back to the two questioning members of Congress on Tuesday and explained that the Carters’ trip to Cuba was fully authorized by the department as “educational travel.”
While the embargo bans tourist trips, it offers exceptions for religious, humanitarian, and yes, educational reasons.It just so happened that the famous couple’s educational field trip also fell on the couple’s anniversary.
So to everyone who thought Jay-Z and Beyoncé were getting special treatment for their Cuban vacation, Jay-Z says he’ll be chilling on the beach with Obama.
Because that doesn’t sound privileged at all.
Listen to “Open Letter” below.
