Nuri Muhammad Puts Jay-Z’s Pen Above A Billion-Dollar Check

Nuri Muhammad put a bigger price on Jay-Z’s words than his wallet, arguing that music built to lift up Black communities could do more than a billion-dollar donation.

“His gift is worth more than a billion dollars,” Muhammad said.

The Nation of Islam minister made that case during a new “Club Shay Shay” conversation with Shannon Sharpe.

He praised Jay-Z’s lyrical talent while urging artists to put their gifts to work for their communities, rather than treating charitable checks as their greatest contribution.

Muhammad reached back to an era of conscious Hip-Hop, naming Public Enemy, Ice Cube and other acts as examples of music tied to Black awareness.

Jay-Z’s community work has already taken several forms.

The Shawn Carter Foundation, which he established with his mother, Gloria Carter, supports students through scholarships, college tours and other education programs. Team Roc also identifies him as a founding partner of REFORM Alliance.

The foundation’s education programs reached underserved students across the country, Team Roc said.

Jay-Z had also used his creative work to address the justice system. Team Roc credited him as an executive producer of the 2017 series “TIME: The Kalief Browder Story,” which examined young people in solitary confinement, and the 2018 documentary series “Rest in Power: The Trayvon Martin Story.”

Jay-Z and Meek Mill helped launch REFORM Alliance at John Jay College in January 2019. At the event, they focused attention on the effects of probation and the criminal justice system on families, with Meek’s own experience central to the effort.

The college’s account of that launch said the founders raised $50 million to start REFORM. Its stated goals were to remove one million people from the criminal justice system within five years and reduce the number of people on probation by half.

At that 2019 event, Jay-Z told the crowd, “This is a humane issue. When you break the family structure, it affects everyone. Education is the key.”

Muhammad has also put his own ideas to music. His official biography describes “Black Excellence Manifesto Vol. 1” as a project that paired excerpts from his lectures with Hip-Hop and R&B artists.