Jay Z wears medallion of group who believe whites are 'wicked and weak': Report

Jay-Z caused a little stir at Barclays Center last week when he wore a shiny medallion the size of a CD symbolizing the Five Percent Nation. 

The rap star and founder of the Roc Nation sports agency was sitting court-side at a Nets game on Tuesday with wife Beyonce when he was snapped wearing the controversial symbol of the group which embraces radical positions regarding religion and race, according to a description by NPR.

One of the core tenants of the Five Percent Nation — an off-shoot of the Nation of Islam — is that white people are "wicked and inferior" to black men.

When asked by a reporter whether the medallion is meaningful to him, Jay-Z shrugged and said, "A little bit," reported The New York Post.

This isn't the first time that the rapper has been connected to the Five-Percenters and Carmelo Anthony has been spotted wearing the gaudy bling himself.

Jay Z was photographed wearing another similar medallion while giving radio interviews for his album Magna Carta Holy Grail last summer. 

And in "Heaven" a track on that album, Jay-Z references the Five Percent Nation's acronym for Allah by rapping "Arm leg leg arm head."

"Jay Z is not an active member — no one has vouched for him" said Saladin Allah, a representative of an upstate New York region. "It was always understood that you don’t wear the ­regalia if you don’t totally subscribe to the life."

So what exactly do Five Percenters believe?

“The rationale is that the black man is God and created the universe, and is physically stronger and intellectually stronger and more righteous naturally,” says Michael Muhammad Knight, an author of two books on the radical group — who converted to Islam as a teen and is Caucasian.

“Whiteness is weak and wicked and inferior — basically just an errant child who needs to be corrected.”

The group was founded in 1964 in Harlem by Clarence Smith, who later changed his name to Allah, a former student of Malcolm X who disagreed with the Nation of Islam over the nature of God.

Smith rejected the notion of a supernatural deity and instead believed that all black men had God in them and that black women were “earths” who took on a complementary yet subordinate role to their gods.

The idea is empowering, Knight says.

“Anytime someone is saying you have to accept your conditions of oppression and slavery and pray to an unseen god — that kind of god is just being used to keep people down and to keep people from looking to themselves as a solution to their problems,” he notes. “If there is a problem, no one will fix it for you, except yourself.”

While Five-Percenters don't refer to themselves as Muslims, they borrow their name from the Nation of Islam's idea that five per cent of humanity are "poor righteous teachers" who are trying to teach the world the truth of existence. 

Another 10 per cent know the truth of existence but keep the 85 per cent majority in ignorance by preaching belief in a "mystery god."

Knight insisted the movement is open and views the group's controversial stance as more of a statement about power rather than race.