Pharrell followed up his co-ed issue of TIME magazine with Black Leaders of “The New American Revolution” from earlier this week by throwing a new song and accompanying music video on Friday.
The track “Entrepreneur” features Jay-Z, whose own recognition of Black Entrepreneur is well established and is often boosted by the rapper himself.
I have to say that I like the music video a lot more than I like the song itself, because I’m pretty tired of rich Black men chiding the rest of us, as if it’s our fault that we are not as rich as has.
Jay-Z himself has been on this tip for a while and he does so right off the bat in this new song, rapping: ‘Black Twitter, what is that? If Jack gets paid, do you? ‘
Jack is of course Jack Dorsey, the CEO of Twitter, while Jay-Z in the previous line refers to the infamous influence and voice that Black users may have had from the platform, including numerous Black makers and entrepreneurs who have Twitter successfully used to start her career.
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Black Twitter laughed for most of the chiding and did some ribs of Jigga himself, including comparing him to Stringer Bell from The Wire:
And his own habits of hobbing with white CEOs like Dorsey exclaim:
Back to the music video for “Entrepreneur”, in which there was a lot to admire. Despite Pharrell singing a refrain of “Black man, black man, black man”, the video for the song features both Black women and Black men doing boss things.
There’s teacher TyAnthony Davis, who founded Vox Collegiate in LA to address low performance for students in his district.
There, Tyler is the creator of Odd Future and Grammy Award-winning celebrity, who looks appropriately proud as a stream of his achievements is mentioned in the video.
There’s Beatrice Dixon from Honey Pot, the Black woman whose natural female product business was directed by white reviewers online who were overwhelmed at an ad in which Dixon says she became an entrepreneur to show little Black girls that they could do it too.
There’s Issa Rae, who went from being a web series creator to an Emmy winner and head of her own entertainment empire.
There are Vincent and Arlene Williams of Honey’s Kettle, a restaurant they operate with their children, and even Nicholas Johnson, again this year became the first Black valedictorian in Princeton history.
The video also has a really powerful ending with Feature by Broadway and choreographer Robert Hartwell, which I will not spoil.
Watch the full video for “Entrepreneur” by Pharrell feat. Jay-Z below to experience it for yourself:
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