Contrast Obama’s embrace of hip-hop to the actions of Bill Clinton who, while running for President in 1992, denounced rapper Sister Souljah, saying that she was the black equivalent of the Ku Klux Klan. It would be extremely surprising to see Jay Z hook up with the presumptive Democratic nominee, Hillary Clinton, in 2016.

During the 2012 campaign, Jay Z raised $4 million for Barack Obama in one night by co-hosting a fundraiser with his wife Beyonce, charging $40,000 for entry to his 40/40 club in New York. Karma-wise, this was repayment for Obama’s endorsement of Jay Z the year before, when the President said the New York rapper exemplifies “what Made in America means.”

Obama didn’t make it clear what he meant by “Made in America,” so perhaps he was unaware that Jay Z used more than his music to make it to the point where he could raise enough money to affect a Presidential election.

Photo tweeted by President Obama shows him with Jay Z and Beyonce at the 40/40 fundraiser

At the very 40/40 Club where the Obama benefit was held, Jay Z was sued by wait staff who said they were paid below minimum wage. After reviewing the earning reports of several employees, a federal judge ruled that the club owners were violating New York labor laws.

Jay Z used sweatshops to produce hip-hop gear for his Rocawear clothing lines. According to the New York Times, “most urban consumers would be appalled if they knew of the horrendous conditions garment workers were forced to endure inside sweatshops to make hip-hop apparel… twenty workers who attempted to form a union said they were immediately fired, and subsequently smuggled Rocawear and Sean John labels out of the sweatshop as evidence.”

Jay Z expressed lukewarm support for the Occupy movement, but his concrete action was to sell “Occupy All Streets” T-shirts for $22 apiece.

So why wasn’t Jay Z damned as a sellout the way James Brown was? Other than a mild rebuke from singer and civil rights activist Harry Belafonte, Jay Z has gotten a free pass. Cynics might say that nobody cares anymore and evidence for that argument could be found in a recent Pew Research Center study found that “a majority of black Americans blame individual failings—not racial prejudice—for the lack of economic progress by lower-income African Americans.”

Because each artist emerged from a different historical moment, to compare the eras of James Brown and Jay Z is to compare apples and oranges. When James Brown made his Presidential endorsements, America was in the midst of huge and highly-visible civil rights and anti-war movements. Urban rebellions and campus takeovers were the order of the day. If you weren’t part of the solution, which Hubert Humphrey and Richard Nixon clearly were not, James Brown was considered part of the problem when he endorsed them.