Jay-Z Drops “Occupy All Streets” T-shirt Idea after Backlash from Media

Well it sounded like a good idea….

Rocawear, Jay-Z’s clothing line, had a brilliant idea. Take “Occupy Wall Street” and cross out the “W” and add an “S” for “Occupy All Streets”.

Cha-Ching. This would have made Steve Stoute proud. Hip Hop meets marketing at its finest. Next step, have Jay-Z wear one of the shirts to get some attention. Jay throws one on and takes a picture with Russell Simmons and it appears on Globalgrind.com. Free publicity!

WHAT WENT WRONG

The shirts were on sale for $22.00 online. The issue was Rocawear execs shared that they had no plans on sharing that revenue with the real occupy wall street gang.

A rep from Rocawear released a statement to Gawker.com

‘At this time, we have not made an official commitment to monetarily support the movement,’

Hmmm….Not a good move. The backlash came fast and furious. So much so, the shirts were removed from the site.

Some of the comments:

‘Jay-Z, as talented as he is, has the political sensibility of a hood rat and is a scrotum.

‘To attempt to profit off of the first important social moment of 50 years with an overpriced piece of cotton is an insult to the fight for economic civil rights known as #occupywallstreet.’

Jay-Z is worth a reported $450 Million dollars. These guys are living in tents with no real organization, a very unclear message and winter coming. I’m sure Jay laughed, checked the time on his Tourbillon, noted the 30 seconds he spent worrying about the issue and kept it moving.

-COSMO