Business
Jay-Z starting $10 million fund for minority-owned cannabis businesses
Rapper mogul creates fund for startups, saying people of color have missed out on marijuana boom
Jay-Z is launching a US$10 million fund to help minorities join the legal marijuana industry.
The 51-year-old rap legend got into the business in October 2020, launching the Monogram cannabis line. Now, he wants to boost others to join him.
White and Black people use marijuana at similar rates, but Black people are nearly 4 times more likely to get arrested for marijuana-related crimes, according to a 2020 analysis by the American Civil Liberties Union.
Meanwhile, white people dominate the legal marijuana industry, owning more than 80% of weed businesses, according to a 2017 report.
“It’s really unbelievable how that can happen,” Jay-Z, whose legal name is Shawn Carter, told the Wall Street Journal. “We were the ones most negatively affected by the war on drugs, and America has turned around and created a business from it that’s worth billions.”
The new fund was created as part of a complex purchase of 2 California-based cannabis companies by a third company. Jay-Z was a creative strategist at Caliva, one of the two companies acquired by Subversive Capital Acquisition Corp., which has renamed itself TPCO Holding Corp., according to a press release.
As part of the deal TPCO Holding will create the US$10 million fund and contribute at least 2 percent of its profits each year, the release said.
The money will go to “minority-owned and Black-owned cannabis businesses and [contributions] to the effort to rectify the wrongs of prohibition.”
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