Jay-Z’s open letter
Alfredo Prieto

A CubaNews translation.
Edited by Walter Lippmann.

Upon his return to the U.S. and in response to all the commotion, Jay-Z wrote the rap song Open Letter, produced by Timbaland and Swizz Beatz and available at www.SoundCloud.com as of April 11. Twenty-four hours later the page had already received 500,000 visits, a sign of the social impact made by an issue that all but compulsively became front-page news in America’s mainstream media ranging from The New York Times to ABC and NBC.

Cuba had again come to the fore much like when Elián González hit the headlines, this time as a result of a trip made by two superstars and its fallout on the current U.S. Cuba policies. 

It’s a new ethno-text revealing of a mixture of positions and combining two worlds: on one hand, Jay-Z’s reaction and attitude to the waves made by Cuban-American politicians and the like, and on the other, his confirmation that he belongs in the realm of power, multi-million-dollar deals, and money. ”Welcome to Havana smoking Cubanos with Castro in cabanas”, he had rapped with Kanye West in “Otis”, a tune from the four-hand album Watch the Throne (2011). Obviously, what we have here is the typical vision on Cuba that prevails in American collective consciousness, built on Havana cigars (Cubanos), beach resorts (cabanas in hotel swimming pools) and Fidel Castro’s figure: the only things missing from this picture are the perennial vintage American cars and the no less perennial mulatto girls. 

Such was Jay-Z’s mindset when he traveled to the forbidden island two years later and the reason for the cigar in his hand, noticeable in many photographs taken as he strolled around the Arms Square or appeared on his balcony at Hotel Saratoga– and a symbol of an item/habit of the rich and powerful whites often seen on the cover of the very exclusive   New York magazine Cigar Aficionado, which hails brands like Romeo & Juliet, H. Uppman, Cohiba, Punch Churchill, etc., but all flanked by the acronym N.A. (non available in the market) due to the blockade.

There’s always room for doubt, however, about what Jay-Z is actually smoking on the other side of the Florida Straits in those pictures of him wearing a Jesus Christ T-shirt and a 5-kg chain and accompanied by others in the same trade.

According to Swizz Beatz, the song came out in a jiffy: “I had the drum machine with me, so we went to the 40/40 [Club] for the [basketball] game. Timbaland arrived with this crazy beat. The following morning Jay-Z called me with this verses,” aggressive ones, as if by a cornered panther, and as verbally violent as to talk about firearms, a common feature in certain styles of this genre. His self-defense starts by making it clear that, if threatened, he will strike back without hesitation (“You know whenever I’m threatened, I start shooting”).

For starters, he speaks to politicians à la Ileana-Ros Lehtinen, Mario Díaz-Balart and Marco Rubio:

Politicians never did shit for me
Except lie to me, distort history
Wanna give me jail time and a fine
Fine, let me commit a real crime. 

What he means in the third verse is plain to see: the current legislation punishes those who travel to Cuba as tourists, if we read it absolutely literally, with ten years in prison and a 250,000-dollar fine, to the detriment of the American people’s age-old civil and constitutional rights. Such is the guillotine that some wanted to drop on two million-dollar heads.

That’s what it’s all about, but then Jay-Z brings out the enfant terrible in him and pulls his trigger again, defiantly, and we can almost see his raised forefinger: at any rate, his crime would be the purchase of a kilo of marijuana (“I might buy a kilo for Chief Keef”) and flood the streets with the grass, a usual topic in gangsta rap ever since its inception in the 1990s (Ice T, Schoolly D., Snoop Dogg...) and heavily frowned on in the U.S., not unlike reggaeton in Cuba, for its vulgar, drug- and promiscuity-worshipping language, and derision of women: “I might buy a kilo for Chief Keef out of spite, I just might flood these streets”

And then he returns to the attack:

I'm in Cuba, I love Cubans
This communist talk is so confusing
When it's from China, the very mic that I'm using
Idiot wind, the Bob Dylan of rap music
You're an idiot, baby, you should become a student.

Intriguing, that “I love Cubans” line: you don’t know for sure whether he is talking about his love of cigars (the Cubanos in the aforesaid verse) or the people who gave him such an affectionate welcome in Havana, so what he means is anybody’s guess.

Be that as it may, it would seem that politics did its mole-like job. As far as I know, neither Beyoncé nor Jay-Z made any statement to the press when they returned to the U.S., before or after the Open Letter thing, that might shed light on this issue. Yet, for what it’s worth, suffice it to mention one of the most quoted lines by the press: “This communist talk is so confusing/ When it's from China the very mic that I'm using”

The rapper could be introducing/validating –his way– a notion that the liberal media has widely argued before and during the affair: if the U.S. has diplomatic and trade relations with China and Vietnam, both ruled, like Cuba, by a communist party and based on political structures that differ from America’s; and if both have gone through a process of internal reforms leading to a decentralized market economy, just like Cuba is presently doing, if in its own style, why keep stuck to schemes inherited from the Cold War days, and unsuccessful ones to boot?

Should this be the rightful interpretation, hypocrisy would then be the key word in the middle of all the fuss over the trip. On top of that, the guy has an ego the size of a house. He says he’s the Bob Dylan of rap music, and once called himself the Che Guevara of this genre.

Nevertheless, there’s another side to it all, that of business and power, an equation known to be cherished by Jay-Z, who has been of late more focused on his entrepreneurial vein than on his music, despite his recent decision to cancel a summer tour with Justin Timberlake. A verse refers to the first of such deals (“Got an onion from Universal”), namely a global partnership between Roc Nation and Universal Music Group (UMG), a move that aroused public interest just before his visit to Cuba, and since. 

Roc Nation is an entertainment company founded by Jay-Z himself in 2008 as part of a 150-million-dollar deal with live events promoter Live Nation. According to Forbes, The New York Times and Los Angeles Times, the deal will have all future Roc Nation albums marketed by UMG, not Sony Music as usual. This partnership with UMG, the world’s greatest and most powerful music producer and distributor, heralds even bigger sales and thus more money for the executives of Roc Nation and, of course, for Jay-Z, followed by signed artists like J. Cole, Willow Smith, Rita Ora, Alexis Jordan, Timbaland and others outside the hip-hop scene, such as Shakira and Rihanna.

“This agreement presents a unique opportunity for Roc Nation's artists –being able to continue to operate as an independent label with the strength, power and reach of the best major,” he said. “I look forward to a long and prosperous collaboration with UMG”. The above coexisted with another corporate exercise fueled by our man in Havana: Roc Nation Sports, a joint venture with Creative Arts Agency that will act as an intermediary between high-profile athletes and the sporting teams, which in the long run would lead him to sell his share to the Brooklyn Nets owing to specific NBA rules and conflicts of interest.

Jay-Z rants again at his attackers, whom he calls losers –that’s what the word “dweeb” means– and insults with a very strong swearword, reminding them of his “successful man” status and class: the English expression “to know one’s onion” refers exactly to that. So he delivers his message in the superior tone of someone convinced that he is everyone’s envy because of his financial accomplishments (“read it and weep”, he tells them) and will never be caught red-handed:

Got an onion from Universal, read it and weep
Would've brought the Nets to Brooklyn for free
Except I made millions off it, you fuckin' dweeb
I still own the building, I'm still keeping my seat
Y'all buy that bullshit, you'd better keep y'all receipt.

The “building” he still claims to own in the 4th verse is Barclays Center, the Nets’ new arena, which is part of Atlantic Yards, a business and residential complex in Prospect Heights, Brooklyn that cost one billion and was opened to the public with a Jay-Z concert on September 28, 2012, after a long and much-disputed legal and financial process. Here the rapper fantasizes that he is one of the Nets’ owners.

The team’s true bigwig –and first foreigner to become an NBA owner– is the Russian billionaire and former Komsomol and Communist Party member Mikhail D. Prokhorov, who has an 80% stake. A graduate from the Moscow Finance Institute, he is president of the investment fund Onexim Group. In 2009, he put $200 million on the team and was a major donor for the construction of the Barclays Center with a first loan of $700 million for the project, developed Forest City Enterprises’ New York-based subsidiary Forest City Ratner, the same ones that built the majestic building that houses The New York Times. Its CEO is Bruce Ratner, a powerful real estate developer of Jewish-Polish extraction and the Nets’ minority owner whom we owe the idea of moving the team from New Jersey to Brooklyn, something he did not do exactly, or not only, for love of sports.

Gentrification is then a key word here. News leaked to the press has it that the value of the Atlantic Yards complex is estimated at $4.9 billion. Jay-Z –who “laid the foundation stone” of the new arena in 2010– was born just a few miles away. As a boy walked down those very streets retailing drugs before he became what he is today... just a way of using his “symbolic capital” to replace people’s homes with facilities and apartment buildings for the rich, in keeping with the strict rules of capitalistic progress. 

Ergo, Jay-Z “owns” nothing, but he must have made, and certainly will make, a lot of money with the Barclays, which includes a Rocawear shop and a new 40/40 Club –where he definitely is MGM’s Lion– not to mention that he co-owns Translation, the agency in charge of publicity for the Nets. According to The New York Times, he invested a million dollars in the team in 2003 alone, “a scant one-fifteenth of one percent of the team”, so this swallow does not make a summer. As an analyst put it, “owning a sports franchise puts you firmly in the oligarch club, but Jay's gotten a seat at the club with only a token investment”. 

Finally, a line of the song (“Boy from the hood but got White House clearance”) would come as an explosive charge. Hood is short for neighborhood and a slang word that means “hoodlum”, in reference to this rapper born and raised in Marcy Houses, a housing project in the Bedford-Stuyvesant area of Brooklyn. But there was a problem with the verse right next to this one, where it says that the trip this New York boy made to Cuba had been green-lighted by the White House, which fueled the Right’s accusation that the couple had been favored on the basis of their ties with both the President and the First Lady. For the sake of understanding, we must bear in mind that late last year Jay and Bey collected four million dollars at the 40/40 Club in New York for Obama’s reelection campaign, and the exceptional diva –described by activists as a “luxurious fundraiser”– sang (actually lip-synched) the U.S.’s national anthem at Obama’s January 21 inauguration. 

Others also suggested that perhaps the President “was being soft on the Castro brothers” and even using the mega-couple to engage in a new sort of “ping-pong diplomacy” by sending them to Cuba with some kind of message for the government, and the Cuban lobby had been making too much noise to not deny it. That’s the reason that the White House reacted so quickly, with its Press Secretary Jay Carney insisting loud and clear that the license had been issued by Treasury, not the White House, in line with the usual procedure for anyone who travels through the so-called people-to-people policy: “I am absolutely saying that the White House from the President on down had nothing to do with anybody’s travel to Cuba. It’s something that Treasury handles”.

To crown it all, he emphatically answered a journalist’s question of why Jay-Z had mentioned Obama in Open Letter, saying: “It’s a song. The President did not communicate with Jay-Z over this trip”. Days later, Obama himself touched upon the topic in NBC’s Today Show: “I wasn’t familiar that they were taking the trip. My understanding is that they went through a group that organizes these educational trips down to Cuba. This is not something the White House was involved with. We’ve got better things to do”. In the White House Correspondents’ Dinner at the Washington Hilton on April 27, he joked: “I have 99 problems and now Jay-Z is one”.

“Being a member of the Nets organization surpassed some of my greatest ambitions. It was never about an investment; it was about the NETS and Brooklyn. My job as an owner is over but as a fan it has just begun. I'm a Brooklyn Net forever. It's been an honor to work with Mikhail Prokhorov, Dmitry Razumov, Christophe Charlier, ONEXIM Sports and Entertainment, Brett Yormark and all the wonderful people involved in making the Nets first class. My sincerest thanks go to Bruce Ratner, who first introduced the idea of moving the Nets to Brooklyn. A thank you and deepest appreciation goes to the fans. You are the lifeblood of any team.  The Nets have made their mark on the NBA and as they enter a new era, Roc Nation does as well; as we embark on Roc Nation Sports. Our newest endeavor is committed to building the brands of professional athletes as we have done for some of today's top music artists. For Roc Nation Sports to function at its full potential, NBA rules stipulate that I relinquish my ownership in the Brooklyn Nets. It was a tough decision but as I stated earlier, it's not about ownership. Congratulations to the Nets on a great season and making the playoffs! I will always be a Brooklyn Net.”

* Alfredo Prieto González, Ediciones UNIÓN, Havana.




 

http://cuba-l.unm.edu/?nid=128559&cat=p

De regreso a los Estados Unidos, Jay-Z escribió "Open Letter" ("Carta Abierta"), un rap de respuesta a todo el revoloteo. Producido por Timbaland y Swizz Beatz, se colocó el 11 de abril en SoundCloud.com. A las 24 horas ya tenía 500 000 entradas, un indicador del impacto social del problema, casi compulsivamente presente en los planos estelares de los principales medios de difusión norteamericanos, del New York Times a ABC y NBC.

Cuba estaba, de nuevo, en lugares protagónicos en la mirada pública, como cuando Elián González, esta vez debido al viaje de dos superestrellas y a la política vigente.

Se trata de un nuevo etno-texto que contiene una mixtura de posiciones y combina dos mundos: por un lado, sus reacciones y actitudes ante los cuestionamientos de los políticos cubano-americanos y sus alrededores, y, por otro, la reafirmación de su pertenencia al mundo del poder, los mega-negocios y el dinero. "Welcome to Havana smoking cubanos with Castro in cabanas", había rapeado con Kanye West en "Otis", una tonada del disco a cuatro manos Watch the Throne (2011). Según se ve, aquí se está en presencia de la visión clásica del imaginario popular norteamericano sobre Cuba, compuesta por habanos (cubanos), turismo de sol y playa (cabañas en las piscinas de los hoteles) y la figura de Fidel Castro: solo se echan de menos los sempiternos carros americanos viejos y las no menos sempiternas mulatas.

Con esa misma fascinación Jay-Z entró dos años después a la isla prohibida, lo cual explica el tabaco en mano que exhibe en muchas fotografías --desde la caminata por la Plaza de Armas hasta el balcón del hotel Saratoga--, toda vez que representa un consumo/actividad de blancos ricos y poderosos frecuentemente retratados en la portada de la exclusívisima revista neoyorkina Cigar Aficionado, en la que marcas como Romeo y Julieta, H. Uppman, Cohiba, Punch Churchill, y otras, figuran con las más altas puntuaciones, pero con una sigla al lado (N.A.: Non Available, no disponible en el mercado) debido al bloqueo.

Aunque siempre a uno le queda la duda sobre la procedencia de los que Jay-Z consume al otro lado del Estrecho, de acuerdo con las imágenes donde aparece echándose perros tabacones vistiendo una T-shirt con la imagen de Jesucristo y su cadenona de cinco kilos, junto a otros colegas del gremio.

Según el testimonio de Swizz Beatz, el número fluyó muy rápido: "tenía la caja de ritmos conmigo, entonces nos fuimos al 40/40 (Club) para ver el partido (de basket). Timbaland llegó con este loco ritmo. La mañana siguiente Jay-Z me llamó con los versos" agresivos, como de pantera acorralada. Y de una violencia verbal que acude a las armas de fuego, una manera característica de ciertos estilos del género. Su autodefensa empieza por dejar claro que cuando lo amenazan, él dispara devolviendo sin vacilación el golpe ("You know whenever I´m threatened, I start shooting").

En primer lugar, a los políticos a lo Ileana-Ross Lethinen, Mario Díaz-Balart y Marco Rubio:

Politicians never did shit for me

Except lie to me, distort history

Wanna give me jail time and a fine

Fine, let me commit a real crime .

(Los políticos nunca hicieron ni mierda por mí Excepto mentirme, distorsionar la historia Me quieren mandar a la cárcel y ponerme una multa Bien, déjenme cometer un verdadero delito).

El referente del tercer verso es obvio: las leyes vigentes castigan, por lo menos en su letra, con diez años de prisión y 250 000 dólares de multa a quienes viajen a Cuba como turistas, a contrapelo de derechos civil-constitucionales de larga data en la cultura norteamericana, una guillotina que algunos estaban deseando dejar caer sobre dos cabezas millonarias.

De eso se trata, pero a continuación Jay-Z saca su credencial de enfant terrible y hala de nuevo el gatillo, desafiante, como levantando hacia arriba el dedo índice: en todo caso, el crimen por el que habría que juzgarlo sería por comprar un kilo de marihuana ("I might buy a kilo for Chief Keef") y por inundar las calles con la hierba, un tema por lo demás grato al gangsta rap desde su eclosión en los años noventa (Ice T, Schoolly D., Snoop Dogg.), muy bombardeado en los Estados Unidos, como el reguetón en Cuba, por su lenguaje soez, culto a las drogas, promiscuidad y visión de las mujeres: I might buy a kilo for Chief Keef Out of spite, I just might flood these streets

Y después vuelve a la carga:

I'm in Cuba, I love Cubans

This communist talk is so confusing

When it's from China, the very mic that I'm using

Idiot wind, the Bob Dylan of rap music

You're an idiot, baby, you should become a student.

Esto de "I love Cubans" ("Amo a los cubanos") es intrigante. Uno no sabe a ciencia cierta si con ello se refiere a su pasión por los tabacos (esos cubanos en el rap aludido al inicio) o a las personas que los recibieron con sobradas muestras de simpatía y admiración aquí en La Habana, de modo que constituye un tema sujeto a disputa.

De cualquier manera, parecería que la política hizo su trabajo de topo. Hasta donde conozco, ni Beyoncé ni Jay-Z han hecho declaraciones a la prensa a su regreso a los Estados Unidos, ni antes ni después de la experiencia de "Open Letter", como para arrojar nueva luz sobre este punto, pero si a mal no viene en uno de los parlamentos más citados por los comentaristas de la prensa

("This communist talk is so confusing/

When it's from China the very mic that I'm using"

//esta muela (sobre Cuba) comunista es tan confusa/

cuando el mismo micrófono que estoy usando es de fabricación china//)

el rapero pudiera estar incorporando/validando --a su modo-- una idea de amplia circulación en los medios liberales, antes y durante el affaire: si los Estados Unidos tienen relaciones diplomático-comerciales con China y Viet Nam, países que, como Cuba, tienen un partido comunista en el poder y no funcionan con los mismos mecanismos políticos norteamericanos; y si por otro lado, China y Viet Nam han atravesado por procesos de cambios internos que incluyen una economía descentralizada y el mercado, como ahora mismo lo está haciendo Cuba, si bien con características propias, ¿por qué seguir con un esquema heredado de la Guerra Fría que, además, no les ha dado resultados?

Si esta lectura es correcta, hipocresía sería entonces la palabra clave en medio de toda esa algarabía por el viaje. El niño tiene, por lo demás, un ego bastante fuerte. Aquí se llama a sí mismo el Bob Dylan de la música rap, antes había sido el Che Guevara del género.

Pero hay en efecto una segunda dimensión, relacionada con los negocios y el poder, como ya se sabe una de las recurrencias de Jay-Z, quien durante los últimos tiempos parece estar más concentrado en su condición de empresario que de músico, a pesar de haber anunciado hace poco un concierto junto a Justin Timberlake para este verano. Al primero de esos business alude en un verso ("Got an onion from Universal"), esto es, a una asociación global (a global partnership) de Roc Nation con Universal Music Group (UMG), movida que acaparó la atención pública durante los días previos a su visita a Cuba y que todavía hoy sigue reverberando en la prensa norteamericana.

Roc Nation es una disquera fundada por el mismo Jay-Z en el año 2008 como parte de un negocio de 150 millones de dólares con Live Nation, una empresa del mundo del entertainment y promotora de conciertos. Según Forbes, el New York Times y Los Angeles Times, el acuerdo permitirá que los discos producidos por Roc Nation salgan a partir de ahora al mercado bajo la sombrilla de la UMG y no de Sony Music, como venía sucediendo. La asociación con UMG, la más grande y poderosa firma transnacional en la producción/distribución de música, implicará un mercado mucho más amplio todavía, y por consiguiente más dinero para los ejecutivos de Roc Nation, por supuesto también para Jay-Z y, luego, para los artistas que graban con ella, entre quienes se encuentran J. Cole, Willow Smith, Rita Ora, Alexis Jordan, Timbaland y, más allá del mundo del hip-hop, Shakira, Rihanna y otros.

"This agreement presents a unique opportunity for Roc Nation's artists --being able to continue to operate as an independent label with the strength, power and reach of the best major," declaró. "I look forward to a long and prosperous collaboration with UMG". Lo anterior coexistía con otro ejercicio empresarial impulsado por nuestro hombre en La Habana: la creación de Roc Nation Sports, un joint venture con Creative Arts Agency y agencia intermediaria entre los atletas de alto rendimiento y los equipos deportivos, lo cual lo llevaría, a la larga, a vender su parte de los Brooklyn Nets por reglas específicas de la NBA y conflicto de intereses.

En el texto clava otra vez a sus verdugos, a los que considera unos perdedores --eso significa el vocablo "dweeb"-- e insulta con una palabrota muy fuerte recordándoles su condición y clase como "hombre de éxito", es decir, el hecho de conocer su trabajo y de ser bien competente: la expresión anglo "to know one´s onion" designa exactamente eso. El mensaje entonces apuntaría, desde esa superioridad manifiesta por parte del hablante, más bien a la envidia por sus logros financiero-empresariales ("read it and weep", "lean esto y lloren", les dice) y a no perder el tiempo en querer cogerlo asando maíz:

Got an onion from Universal, read it and weep Would've brought the Nets to Brooklyn for free Except I made millions off it, you fuckin' dweeb I still own the building, I'm still keeping my seat Y'all buy that bullshit, you'd better keep y'all receipt.

El "edificio" del que todavía se proclama dueño en el cuarto verso es el Barclays Center, la nueva sede de los Mets ubicada en un complejo de negocios y residencial (Atlantic Yards) en Prospect Highs, Brooklyn. Fue construida a un costo de un billón de dólares e inaugurada, de hecho, el 28 septiembre de 2012 con un concierto del propio Jay-Z después de un largo y controversial proceso por problemas legales y financieros. Aquí el rapero fantasea. Como la saga de que es uno de los propietarios de los Nets.

El verdadero pez gordo de los Nets es el multimillonario ruso Mijail D. Prokhorov, dueño del 80% de la cosa. El primer extranjero en poseer una franquicia de la NBA. Ex miembro del Konsomol y del PCUS, graduado del Instituto de Finanzas de Moscú y actual presidente de la firma de inversiones Onexim Group, en el año 2009 soltó 200 millones de dólares en el equipo, y después fue uno de los mayores contribuyentes en la construcción de la sede mencionada: otorgó un préstamo inicial de 700 millones al proyecto, desarrollado por Forest City Ratner, subsidiaria neoyorkina de Forest City Enterprises. Los mismos que construyeron el majestuoso edificio del New York Times. Su presidente y jefe ejecutivo es Bruce Ratner, un poderoso real state developer de origen judío-polaco y dueño minoritario de los Nets. A él se debe la idea de trasladar al equipo de New Jersey a Brooklyn, algo que no hizo exactamente (o no solo) por amor al deporte. Gentrification es entonces una palabra clave en esta ecuación. Según trascendidos, el complejo Atlantic Yards tiene un valor estimado de 4.9 billones de dólares. Jay-Z --quien en el 2010 "puso la primera piedra" de esa nueva sede--, nació a unas escasas millas del lugar y en su temprana juventud desandó esas mismas calles vendiendo droga al por menor antes de convertirse en lo que hoy es. Una manera de utilizar su "capital simbólico" para desplazar personas por edificios y apartamentos para los ricos, de acuerdo con las más estrictas reglas del progreso capitalista.

Jay-Z no es entonces "dueño" de nada, pero en efecto debe haber hecho, y hará, buenas sumas con la movida del Barclays, donde hay, entre otras cosas, una tienda Rocawear y un nuevo 40/40 Club, en los que sí es el León de la Metro. Por no mencionar su condición de co-propietario de Translation, la agencia encargada de los anuncios y la propaganda comercial de los Nets. De acuerdo con el New York Times, solo había invertido en el equipo un millón de dólares en el año 2003, "a scant one-fifteenth of one percent of the team", de manera que esa golondrina no hace verano. Como afirma un analista, "owning a sports franchise puts you firmly in the oligarch club, but Jay's gotten a seat at the club with only a token investment".

Por último, una línea del rap ("Boy from the hood but got White House clearance") funcionaría como una carga explosiva. Hood es un apócope de neighborhood ("vecindario"), que en slang significa "barrio pobre", referencia a los orígenes del rapero, nacido y criado en Marcy Houses, uno de los projects del barrio Bedford-Stuveysant, Brooklyn. Pero hubo un problema con el texto que viene inmediatamente después: según afirma, ese muchachito neoyorkino había sido autorizado por la Casa Blanca a viajar a Cuba, lo cual daba pábulo a las acusaciones de la derecha en el sentido de que la pareja había recibido un tratamiento especial a partir de su conexión con el Presidente y la primera dama. Para entenderlo mejor, hay que recordar que a fines del año pasado Jay and Bey habían recaudado cuatro millones de dólares en el 40/40 Club de Nueva York para la campaña de reelección de Obama, y que la excepcional diva --catalogada por ese activismo como una "luxurious fundraiser"-- había cantado (en realidad doblado) el himno nacional de los Estados Unidos en la ceremonia de inauguración presidencial, el 21 de enero de 2013.

Otros sugerían, además, que el presidente de los Estados Unidos pudiese estar en una "posición blanda hacia los Castro" y hasta utilizando a la mega-pareja en una especie de nueva "diplomacia del ping pong" enviándola a Cuba con algún tipo de mensaje a las autoridades. Y ya había suficiente ruido público con el lobby cubano como para no desmentirlo. Ello explica la inmediata reacción de la Casa Blanca, que en la figura de Jay Carney, su secretario de Prensa, insistió en que el Departamento del Tesoro, y no la Casa Blanca, había otorgado la licencia, un procedimiento rutinario para cualquier viajero en el marco de la llamada política people-to-people: "Lo estoy diciendo de manera absoluta", dijo alto y claro, "nadie en la Casa Blanca, del Presidente para abajo, tuvo nada que ver con el viaje. Eso es algo que maneja el Departamento del Tesoro".

Rematando más enfáticamente aún ante la pregunta de un periodista acerca de la razón por la que Jay-Z había mencionado a Obama en el rap, sentenció: "es solo una canción. El Presidente no se comunicó con Jay-Z a propósito de este viaje". Días después, el propio presidente Obama abordó el tema en el programa televisivo Today Show de la NBC: "No estaba familiarizado con el viaje. Entiendo que fueron mediante un grupo que organiza esos viajes educacionales a Cuba. No es algo en lo que haya estado involucrada la Casa Blanca. Tenemos mejores cosas que hacer". Y durante una cena en el Washington Hilton con los periodistas que cubren la Casa Blanca, el pasado sábado 27 de abril, bromeó: "Tengo 99 problemas y ahora Jay-Z es uno de ellos".

Being a member of the Nets organization surpassed some of my greatest ambitions. It was never about an investment; it was about the NETS and Brooklyn. My job as an owner is over but as a fan it has just begun. I'm a Brooklyn Net forever. It's been an honor to work with Mikhail Prokhorov, Dmitry Razumov, Christophe Charlier, ONEXIM Sports and Entertainment, Brett Yormark and all the wonderful people involved in making the Nets first class. My sincerest thanks goes to Bruce Ratner, who first introduced the idea of moving the Nets to Brooklyn. A thank you and deepest appreciation goes to the fans. You are the lifeblood of any team. The Nets have made their mark on the NBA and as they enter a new era, Roc Nation does as well; as we embark on Roc Nation Sports. Our newest endeavor is committed to building the brands of professional athletes as we have done for some of today's top music artists. For Roc Nation Sports to function at its full potential, NBA rules stipulate that I relinquish my ownership in the Brooklyn Nets. It was a tough decision but as I stated earlier, it's not about ownership. Congratulations to The Nets on a great season and making the playoffs! I will always be a Brooklyn Net.

* Alfredo Prieto González Ediciones UNIÓN, Habana.