Back when it was announced that Jay-Z had "bought" the New Jersey Nets, it occurred to me that there must have been some shenanigans involved. I just wasn't sure what.

Think about it. Jay-Z has a shiteload of money, but I seriously doubt that he's got enough money to just cop a major sports franchise outright. No, the only way he would be able to come into ownership of an NBA team is if one of these TIs invited him to become a low-level participant.

Which of course begs the question: Why would one of these TIs give Jay-Z a piece of the Nets when they could just purchase the entire thing themselves, or at the very least, bring in one of their cousins to be the co-owner. You know, keep it within the tribe.

Then, when it was announced that Jay-Z would be moving the Nets into some Frank Gehry-designed corporate crime spree in downtown Brooklyn (seriously, if you want to hear about some ol' bullshit, you should read up on how the TIs coax these local governments into giving them taxpayer dollars to build sports stadiums), I realized what was going on here: Jay-Z is just serving as the black front for tall Israeli interests.

Just like he did with Roc-A-Wear, and Def Jam, and probably pretty much every other business venture he's been involved in. To the viewing public, it appears as if Jay-Z is the owner and/or the CEO of these companies; but at the end of the day, the lion's share of the wealth still ends up where it always has, i.e. in some TI's pocket.

But why should Jay-Z give a shit? He's got like $300 million.

I was surprised though to learn that Jay-Z and his partners with the New Jersey Nets have been involved in business dealings with some company that's been accused of funding the slave trade - though I'm not sure what the exact nature of their relationship is, or what evidence exists that this company Barclay's was involved in shipping my great- great- great- great-grandpa to the US.

Barclay's Bank supposedly has naming rights to the stadium. Which of course makes me wonder... um, why? Why, with as many companies as I'm sure would love to have naming rights to this stadium, would they go with a bank that's been alleged to have funded the slave trade? Why not Verizon Wireless, or Scottrade, or Smirnoff Vodka or some shit? Even if they were offering less money, at least they'd be less of a PR debacle.

And yet, even now, a while after it's been publicized that Barclay's was built on blood money, I've yet to hear that Jay-Z and his band of cousins are even considering going with another sponsor. Even after the issue has been raised in light of concerns having to do with gentrification, which is obviously gonna carry a certain racial connotation.

This despite the fact that Jay-Z is supposedly deeply attuned to the issues facing the black diaspora - to hear several recent campaigns for him and his crew's clothing line Rocawear tell it. Like the one where he was photographed with some African kids (probably even in Africa!), or the one from the other day with Sean Bell's wife and kids.

It's almost as if Jay-Z and the TI's relationship with Barclay's extends much deeper than just suspiciously granted stadium naming rights. Furthermore, if you're especially given to buying into conspiracy theories, it's almost as if this recent round of Rocawear ads was purposely designed to make Jay-Z look like Mr. Black People right at the time when he's aligning with the people who brought us here in the first place.

Not that I'm trying to go back to Africa or anything. I'm just saying. (*shudders at the thought*)

Kool Herc, the man who invented hip-hop (sort of, and in between hits from a motherfucking crack pipe), claims that this is all just the latest in a centuries-long conspiracy to oppress black people. Supposedly, he's even going so far as to sue Jay-Z and his benefactors to the tune of a whopping $5 billion. (Though you wonder why he didn't just go for $5 gozillion while he's at it.)

Obviously, my tendency is to want to disregard the rantings of anyone who's suffered from issues with the pipe. (Or how should I know, maybe he enjoyed every minute of it.) But in the absence of any satisfying explanation as to the issues I raised earlier in this post, I'm left with no other choice but to think that Kool Herc might be on to something. And not just a substance dependency.

And even if there isn't some grand conspiracy here involving some secret cabal of Jews who meet in a cave several hundred feet below the earth's surface, I'd say Jay-Z's dealings with these people definitely falls into a pattern of activity that's had the effect, over the past several hundred years, of denying black people the world over - save for a few tokens - the ability to attain any real wealth.

Or am I reading too much into this? What do you fruits think?

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