Jay-Z Teams with the U.N. and MTV to Fight the Global Water Crisis

Brooklyn rapper and Def Jam executive Jay-Z joined U.N. Secretary General Kofi Anaan and MTV president Christina Norman for a press conference on Wednesday (August 9) to announce a joint initiative to bring awareness to the global water crisis. MTV will accompany Jay on his upcoming world tour and document his experiences as he travels to areas affected by the lack of drinkable water. The resulting footage will be compiled for a special documentary titled Diary of Jay-Z: Water for Life. By the end of the tour, the rapper has stated that he intends to build 1,000 play pumps, which are merry-go-round-like devices that pump water from wells into storage tanks. “As I started looking around and looking at ways that I could become helpful, it started at the first thing—water, something as simple as water,” he explained at the press conference. He has also reportedly reached out to friends in the entertainment industry and asked them to get involved. According to statistics, over 1 billion people in the world are without clean drinking water and some 2.6 billion are forced to live in unsanitary conditions. Jay-Z’s international tour kicks off on September 9 in Poland.