Jay-Z has campaigned for the Minnesota Attorney General to handle the criminal case against the killers of George Floyd.
Foto: Getty Images for Something in th, Brian Ach. All rights reserved.
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Out of solidarity and as a token of protest, large parts of the music industry are now stopping work. The three major labels Warner, Sony and Universal have joined a call in the USA that there should be no “business as usual” this Tuesday – instead a “Blackout Tuesday”.
The music brands Rolling Stone, Musikexpress and Metal Hammer join the call for “Black Tuesday” and today only publish news and reports on the subject of racism and the protests against it.
The background to the solidarity action is the ongoing police violence against African Americans and the killing of George Floyd by police officers in the past week. For minutes, a police officer pressed his knee on the 46-year-old African-American’s neck and, despite his desperate cries for help (“I can’t breathe”), he did not let go. Floyd died shortly afterwards.
The death of George Floyd sparked a growing wave of protests against racism and police violence in the United States. And a social discussion about its causes.
On Sunday, May 31, 2020, Minnesota Governor Tim Walz announced that Keith Ellison would lead the indictments against the four police officers responsible for the death of George Floyd. Ellison currently serves as the Minnesota attorney general. The decision was due, among other things, to the US rapper Jay-Z, explained Walz.
During a press conference on Sunday May 31st, the politician said, “I received a call from Jay-Z last night. Not [als] international artist, rather [als] Father, who emphasized to me that justice must be done, ”said Walz. Jay-Z then posted a statement on the Twitter channel of his co-founded “REFORM Alliance”. He wrote that he had had a “serious conversation” with Walz and thanked him for “doing the right thing and calling in Attorney General Keith Ellison to take over the George Floyd case.” The REFORM Alliance was sometimes founded by Jay -Z and aims to “drastically reduce the number of people who are wrongly under the control of the criminal justice system,” as the official website says.
