Accepting the special 2024 Grammy “Global Impact Award” this past Sunday, also known as the “Dr. Dre Award,” Sean “Jay-Z” Carter, with daughter Blue Ivy by his side, did not readily give off the vibe that his speech would present a treasure trove of goodies that would give Black America a surreal moment of reflection.

While holding the matte black gramophone statute, Jay-Z decided that the podium would be his proverbial “taking a knee” stance against what he perceived to be an injustice aimed at his wife, Beyonce Knowles Carter.

In what many believed to be a husband merely pointing out the deliberate oversight of the Academy of the Recording Arts & Sciences regarding his spouse, Jay-Z remarked that he wanted the Grammys “to get it right.” Get what right? Beyonce is the most decorated recording artist in Grammy history. On each of the four occasions that she was nominated in the category of “Album of the Year,” however, she has consistently lost.

“I don’t want to embarrass this young lady,” he said, “but she has more Grammys than everyone and never won album of the year. So even by your own metrics that doesn’t work. Think about that.”

What exactly does Jay-Z want Grammy board members to think about? Is Jay-Z implying that the academy is deliberately snubbing Beyonce in the “Best Album” category because she is a Black woman?

“You know, some of you gonna go home tonight and feel like you’ve been robbed,” Jay-Z continued. “Some of you may get robbed. Some of you don’t belong in a category. No, when I get nervous, I tell the truth.”

Black social media users rushed to Jay-Z and Beyonce’s side in solidarity with what many believe to be an orchestrated effort to keep the “Album of the Year” winners white.

That Grammy has been awarded 11 times to Black artists in its 66 years starting with Stevie Wonder holding the distinction of being the first in 1974 and 1975, and then again in 1977. Michael Jackson won in 1984 for “Thriller”, Lionel Richie in 1985, Qunicy Jones in 1991, Natalie Cole in 1992, Whitney Houston in 1994, Lauryn Hill in 1999, Outkast in 2004, Ray Charles in 2005, Herbie Hancock in 2008, and Jon Batiste in 2022.

Could there be an issue of racial discrimination in how the category is curated for a winner? Possibly. But isn’t it peculiar that Sean “Jay-Z” Carter, billionaire Hip Hop artist and businessman, would be the very person to point out a perceived racial injustice when he was also the one who noted during a press conference in 2020 with NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell, to announce a partnership with his Roc Nation company and the NFL, “We have moved past kneeling”?

Let’s not forget that since “moving past kneeling,” the NFL is still almost 60% Black, with only seven Black “minority owners” and “70% of the league identifying as a person of color.”

In order to get the NFL back to business as usual in 2020 and to silence calls for the re-hiring of San Francisco quarterback Colin Kaepernick, Sean “Jay-Z” Carter was brought in not to help stir the racist consciousness of the white majority owners of NFL teams towards diversity and inclusivity, but to appease the sleep-like sensibilities of loyal Black NFL fans and loll them into a sense that things would get better for Blacks in the league, on the field and off.

That was not to be, but Jay-Z continues to profit massively from his deal with the NFL each year. He is the perfect picture of the proverbial Trojan Horse. His so-called “activism” is nothing more than a political stunt for profit. It pales in comparison to the lifelong true crusade of talk radio icon and social injustice activist Joe Madison who made his transition last week. Madison’s famous words “So what are you going to do about it?” which he peppered throughout his 40plus years on radio was a call to action to everyone who pointed out racial or social injustices. The challenge was to not just talk about it, but to DO something about it, make a difference.

Madison started his radio career in Detroit in 1980 and became the youngest executive director at the Detroit branch of the NAACP at the age of 24. He later became the national political director. Madison’s radio show on Sirius XM garnered more than 23 million listeners and he believed that he had an obligation to his listeners, Black America, and the diaspora. Madison traveled to Haiti in 2010 after a devastating earthquake, helped victims of Hurricane Katrina, went on a 73-day hunger strike in 2021 while battling prostate cancer, and took six trips to the Sudan in the middle of its political and social upheaval.

Madison’s record of “doing something” is extensive. The main idea is that the life of an activist is exemplified by the biography of Joe Madison and somehow Jay-Z is not really about that type of life if he has the audacity to complain and protest racial discrimination but in an odd way profits from said racial wrongs. If Jay-Z really felt some kind of way about the Recording Academy of Arts & Sciences’ obvious racial bias against his wife, Beyonce, by snubbing her, or as he put it, “robbing” her of an “Album of the Year” award, then would he have accepted the “Global Impact” special Grammy award Sunday evening? Collectively Jay-Z and Beyonce have 57 Grammys in their home, and that number includes daughter Blue Ivy’s win. Let’s call a thing a thing. Were Jay-Z’s complaints of racial bias against Beyonce worth mentioning if he is not “going to do something about it?” What is more tangible in this life: a bunch of awards from people who do not really honor or respect your accomplishments, or a life of service, activism, and purpose that awards in the uplifting and dignification of Black people? Fly on, Black Eagle. Fly On.