White House Responds to Jay-Z's 'Open Letter' Obama Lyrics

<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on"><img alt="White House Responds to Jay-Z's 'Open Letter' Obama Lyrics" src="http://www.billboard.com/files/styles/promo_650/public/media/beyonce-jay-z-cuba-anniversary-650-430.jpg" /><br /><br /><h2 class="field field-name-field-sub-headline field-type-text field-label-hidden" style="background-color: white; border: 0px; color: #1a1a1a; font-family: BrownStd-Regular, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 24px; font-weight: normal; line-height: 28px; margin: 0px 0px 28px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">"It's a song, Donovan. The President did not communicate with Jay-Z over this trip," press secretary Jay Carney tells Politico reporter</h2><div class="field field-name-body field-type-text-with-summary field-label-hidden" style="background-color: white; border: 0px; color: #1a1a1a; font-family: BrownStd-Regular, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><div class="field-items" style="background-color: transparent; border: 0px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><div class="field-item even" property="content:encoded" style="background-color: transparent; border: 0px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><div style="background-color: transparent; border: 0px; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; line-height: 23px; margin-bottom: 18px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Jay-Z's new song "Open Letter," a response to criticism over his and Beyonce's trip to Cuba, has racked up nearly 500,000 listens in just a few hours. Now we know that some of those plays came from the White House and the reporters that cover it.</div><div style="background-color: transparent; border: 0px; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; line-height: 23px; margin-bottom: 18px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">During a White House press briefing earlier today, Politico reporter Donovan Slack asked White House Press Secretary Jay Carney whether President Obama gave Jay-Z and Beyoncé clearance for their travel, based off a lyric from the rapper's just-released song "Open Letter."</div><div style="background-color: transparent; border: 0px; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; line-height: 23px; margin-bottom: 18px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"></div><div style="border: 0px; margin-bottom: 18px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">After reciting the lyric (“I turned Havana into Atlanta... Boy from the hood/ I got White House clearance... Obama said, 'Chill you gonna get me impeached/ You don’t need this shit anyway, chill with me on the beach'"), Slack asked Carney if Obama did indeed give Jay-Z clearance.</div><iframe frameborder="0" height="375" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/nkAA7F4rsLc?rel=0" style="border-width: 0px; font-family: BrownStd-Regular, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; line-height: 20px; margin: 20px 0px 5px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;" width="500"></iframe><div style="border: 0px; margin-bottom: 18px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Carney brushed off the question with sarcasm: "I guess nothing rhymes with Treasury... because Treasury offers and gives licenses for travel, as you know, and the White House has nothing to do with it."</div><div style="border: 0px; margin-bottom: 18px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">"I am absolutely saying that the White house from the President on down had nothing to do with anybody's travel to Cuba that is something that Treasury handles.," he continued.</div><div style="border: 0px; margin-bottom: 18px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">And if Carney didn't make himself clear before, he shut down the conversation by denying White House approval straight forward.</div><div style="border: 0px; margin-bottom: 18px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">"It's a song, Donovan. The President did not communicate with Jay-Z over this trip."</div><div style="border: 0px; margin-bottom: 18px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Following the presser, Slack tweeted some suggestions for words that rhyme with Treasury.</div></div></div></div></div>

Jay Z Open Letter White House Responds to Jay-Z's 'Open Letter' Obama Lyrics

"It's a song, Donovan. The President did not communicate with Jay-Z over this trip," press secretary Jay Carney tells Politico reporterJay-Z's new song "Open Letter," a response to criticism over his and Beyonce's trip to Cuba, has racked up nearly 5…

Read more »