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What was surprising was when the rappers started showing up.

At first it was just Russell Simmons—not technically a rapper, but a rap icon—his proselytizing becoming a daily fixture at Zuccotti Park and then at far-flung movement outposts like Occupy LA and Occupy Boston. Later came Kanye West and Jay-Z, the most famous hip-hop artists in the world right now. West has been to Zuccotti himself once, when he ambled around the park for about eight minutes before being shuffled off to chauffeured cars. For his part, Jay-Z hasn’t made an appearance at any protest encampment or march, but he’s been showing his support in other ways, specifically by hawking a run of OWS-themed Rocawear t-shirts for $22 a pop. Jigga’s advocacy knows bounds, of course: None of the proceeds from those shirts will go to OWS or any other charity. After criticism, the shirts were lifted from the Rocawear site, but as of now, they appear to be back on the market—and on backorder.

The presence of Simmons and friends—which has been mostly Simmons—at OWS is as paradoxical as Rocawear’s protest t-shirts. On the one hand, yes, support OWS, everyone should. On the other, what sense does anti-corporate Rocawear apparel make? This cognitive dissonance was perhaps best illustrated that afternoon in early October, when, draped in gold chains that hung low below his Givenchy shirt, Kanye strutted through the OWS crowds, smiling and silent and flanked by yes-men. One could almost hear him humming “Jesus Walks” quietly to himself as people reached out to touch him, his gold grill glinting sunlight into everyone’s eyes. All around the rapper men and women held signs decrying greed and selfishness, and demanding higher taxes for the ultra-rich. It was undoubtedly a different scene than the one he’d encountered hours before while shopping with Beyoncé at a boutique called Intermix. At Intermix you can buy a leopard-print handbag for $3,200.

If Kanye loves to spend, his friend Simmons loves to make money off of people who spend. Among other things, Simmons is the purveyor of the Rush Card, a prepaid Visa card designed for people too poor to get regular bank accounts. With a $10 monthly usage fee, and many others along the way, the Rush Card earns profits by charging people to spend their own money, a practice that’s gotten Simmons heckled at OWS and on the receiving end of a recent investigation by Florida’s attorney general. Simmons has consistently lashed out at critics, naturally, telling Forbes in March that the Rush Card makes it so people “don’t have to get on line at a check cashing place.” But he’s seemingly forgotten that things have already gone badly wrong when your best defense is that your product isn’t as bad as a check-cashing scam.

Knowing some of the ways Simmons has gone about accumulating his $110 million fortune—those predatory debit cards, a clothing brand that may or may not be tied to questionable labor practices, gigs helping mega-entities like Coca-Cola with commercials—it’s been interesting to hear him outline the OWS movement’s wish list for the many reporters who seek him out. Thus far the Occupy movement has purposefully avoided crafting any bulleted list of demands in favor of letting protestors speak for themselves. This nebulousness, some have argued, has been one the movement’s “great strengths.” Simmons apparently disagrees, as he often feels very comfortable expounding at length about what he thinks OWS stands for. Frequently he’ll forget about the protesters who say they want a radical redistribution of wealth. He’ll forget about the protesters holding up signs celebrating socialism. Instead, Simmons prefers to focus on the demand that lobbyists and corporate money wield less control over the government. He talks about this constantly, and at one point he even said railing against lobbyists is the “one thing” protesters should focus on in their responses to what OWS is about. However sincere his motives may be, it's certainly convenient that Simmons' personal cause célèbre at OWS is the one that doesn't call into question the foundation on which he’s amassed a 35,000-square-foot home.

It must be quite strange to be a black millionaire. I can only venture to guess at what that second part entails, but I would imagine it’s something like straddling a great divide, or trying to reconcile within yourself two endlessly different senses of being. Societal expectations can be difficult to escape, and society—both black and white—is confused by a black millionaire.

I’ve occasionally said to my friends that black hipsters are the truest hipsters, because even their race is “indie.” It’s a dumb joke largely cribbed from a Chris Rock bit, but I do think there’s some truth to it. For about 100,000 reasons, most of them quite subtle, people of color in America quickly learn to consider themselves outsiders—maybe not outcasts, but definitely not part of the norm. That coupled with a history sprinkled liberally with icons like Huey and Malcolm and Martin can start to manifest itself as a sense of duty to fight for the little guy. But what happens when you’re no longer little?

I think that if you told Russell Simmons his prepaid credit cards are the kind of predatory bullshit that got America into this mess, he’d be genuinely shocked (when it happened here all he could do was smile sheepishly). I think if you said to Jay-Z that attempting to profit off of OWS through Rocawear is vile, he’d respond with something like, “What's wrong with selling goodness? There's nothing wrong with it” (which is actually a direct quote from Simmons when asked about Jay-Z’s vile shirts). I think that if you asked Kanye West how he can support a movement Simmons says is anti-oil and gas lobbying while also big-upping the 10-mile-per-gallon Maybach he’d say you were a hater. I think that each of these men would be disappointed to find out that if a revolution is to happen, it’s definitely not going to begin with them, and indeed they may be part of the problem.

Nietzsche warns us that it’s painful to discover you’ve become the monster you thought you were battling. But what certainly hurts worse is when, having become a monster, the other monsters won’t even let you into their dark and secret hideouts. As wealthy and powerful as Simmons has become while playing by America’s rules, there are still golf clubs where he can’t be a member, and still prominent white politicians who wouldn’t think twice about calling him “brotha” or telling him “you be da man.” There are even still many people who would be upset if their daughter brought him home. There’s a notorious and easily modified black joke that goes, “What do you call a black billionaire (or lawyer or doctor)?” The answer: “A nigger.” That one’s always been particularly ugly to me for its honesty.

I wonder if the past few weeks have found Russell Simmons dreaming of walking quickly down a narrow pathway in Manhattan. There’s an OWS protest on one side of him and Wall Street on the other side, and yet he can’t reach either. Not really, not fully.

Cord Jefferson is a senior editor at GOOD.

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Remember that great Alan Parsons Project video from 1984?

I love that one. Maybe Jay-Z should sample it for his response record. The title serving as a subtle way of saying, "Let's let this be the end of this."

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There are two kinds of rich man's rhymes on this album, and it's worth understanding how they differ. Just because both men talk about their riches doesn't mean they're talking about them in the same way.... Kanye, depressingly, seems to be content with his shopping list as an end in itself. The guy who once backed up his Katrina-era criticism of Bush 43 by promising to ask his manager how much he could donate to victims now appears to be drained of whatever empathy he once possessed....

"The scales was lopsided/ I'm just restorin' order" Jay says of his capitalistic rise. But he also recognizes that his own success is not enough. On "Murder to Excellence," he says, "Only spot a few blacks the higher we go. … We're gonna need a million more." (Kanye joins him in that sentiment, briefly, before departing to buy Gucci shoes at the mall.)

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That's Jay-Z, breaking in to admire the long, pitched-down passage from "Try A Little Tenderness" that opens "Otis," the second official leak from Jay and Yeezy's Watch The Throne. The track on "Otis" alternates between interpolation and staccato bursts, as if torn between literalism (reverence?) and avoiding a lawsuit (its own kind of nostalgia). Since it's 2011, and Otis Redding's estate is well advised of its rights and powers, Redding is credited as a featured artist on the track, a featured role that almost makes it seem like "Otis" is the King of Soul's posthumous tribute to himself, "Unforgettable" minus the filial right, or attachment, to the seance. Except "Otis" isn't about Otis Redding at all, and the use of "Try A Little Tenderness"—a song that hardly begins and ends with Redding's 1966 studio recording—has come to represent "soul" in a way that nearly contradicts the spirit of Hov's ad-lib.

In its original form, "Try A Little Tenderness" was anything but "so soulful." Written by James Campbell, Reginald Connelly and Harry M. Woods, it was recorded in 1932 by Ray Noble and his Orchestra. Many great things happened during the Swing Era, but "Tenderness" was not one of them. Mawkish, stilted and perfectly forgettable, it comes off as a courting lesson on how to gain permission to put hand on knee and stare just a little too long. (Contrast this to what the song would become in Redding's hands, when, as a bolt of pure feeling, it would advise men to not only show they cared, but show that they could care.) Noble's Orchestra was also responsible for "Cherokee (Indian Love Song)," the ode to interracial love out on the prairie that Charlie Parker would use as the source material for 1945's blistering "Koko," a crucial text of bebop at its most brainy and nearly unhinged. It's awfully tempting to insert a comparison to sampling here, but if anything, "Otis" is moving in the wrong direction (Note: Kanye's subtle use of Redding's "It's Too Late" for "Gone" belongs in an entirely different conversation.)

As nice a story as it'd make, Otis Redding didn't transform "Try A Little Tenderness" from campy relic to anthem in a single stroke. The process was more gradual, maybe more compromised. Bing Crosby took a go at "Tenderness" in 1933, and in the process injected some humanity into it. No less paternalistic, his interpretation stressed the duties of manhood, the weakness of women, and how love was about being strong by pretending to be vulnerable. Maybe that's a little too much psychodrama to pull from a performance that, for all Crosby's sly phrasing and attempts at straight talk, is still relatively light fare. But it was enough for "Tenderness" to catch on as a minor standard, an especially useful one to have in the songbook for black entertainers looking to cross over in the '50s and early '60s and perform at “classy joints." Selling records to white kids was one thing; eons before anyone thought to let youth guide the industry, appealing to white adults was the real meal ticket.

Sam Cooke invented soul music, unless you believe Ray Charles did. Sam Cooke badly wanted to achieve total world domination, gunning for every imaginable market and insisting on self-determination when it came to publishing rights, ownership of masters and, eventually, the label itself. Whether he was conflicted, versatile or mercenary is beside the point. Sam Cooke was a businessman who refused to settle for just being an entertainer. "A Change Is Gonna Come," Cooke's deepest song, was recorded in 1963 and released in 1964. Its social protest allegory, inspired by Dylan-envy, proved once and for all that searing, liquid vocals could tap into something other than ecstasy, heartbreak or the urge to boogie. Yet in 1964, Cooke was also in front of the audience at the Copa, playing to his supper club audience with genteel fare like "Tenderness". He makes it hint at seduction, but make no mistake: Neither Sam Cooke nor Aretha Franklin (who recorded it in 1962) made the song their own. If anything, “Try A Little Tenderness” was part of a strategy to reach consumers who still clung to the song’s goofy pedigree.

The same year Aretha recorded "Tenderness," Stanley Kubrick used an especially airy orchestral version of the song for the opening credits of Dr. Strangelove. It was, above all else, silly, in that deathly way that so much of Dr. Strangelove is. On the most basic level, the atomic bomb-throwing planes as ticklish lovers was too good a gag to pass up. It helped that "Tenderness," at that point, was not only innocent, but foolish to boot.

Redding recorded "Try A Little Tenderness" because Sam Cooke had. Everything Cooke touched had a golden quality; he made other singers see potential everywhere, even in material that Cooke himself hadn't exactly pushed to the limit (If restraint was Cooke's most potent weapon as an interpreter, it was also code for all that he stood for as a stylist). In the studio, Otis amplified Sam Cooke's "Tenderness," turning it from a handy little number into a vehicle for, well, soul (he nearly did the same with "Tennessee Waltz") and splitting its plaintive core wide open. The more tenderness Redding tries, or suggests trying, the more he found it already waiting there; along with strength, passion and the clarity that the daily grind and macho posturing can block from view. In Redding's hands, "Try A Little Tenderness" became a celebration, not only of romance, but of honesty and self-discovery. Redding, who isn’t even talking about his woman but gets just as caught up as if he were, makes the song about discovery, not problem-solving. For the narrator, “Tenderness” is an occasion to tear the house of self down.

Or, as it turned out, just to tear the house down. "Try A Little Tenderness" joined "I've Been Loving You Too Long (To Stop Now)" as Redding's live show-stoppers. The two songs could not have been more different, but they shared the same smoldering, meandering pace, with a grand finale that was both inevitable and open-ended. They could go on forever, and one imagines they sometimes did. The studio version of "Tenderness" was an experiment—how would Otis Redding interpret a song suggested by Sam Cooke? But performed live, "Tenderness" and "I've Been Loving" took on their own soaring independent lives and developed their own rituals, as the audience moved along with the performer even as he called on it for strength and support. Cooke had sought to break in with white supper club audiences. By the time Redding got his shot, at the Monterey Pop Festival in 1967, he was playing to the first wave of flower children. "Tenderness" became a banner of authenticity (take that, Ray Noble!), the definition of "love" expanded, and Redding the embraced, albeit as a racial caricature whose “soul” they could only aspire to. See also: Jimi Hendrix, the other big winner at Monterey that year, who lived long enough to see how complicated his relationship with this crowd would become. He got to their hearts by turning his guitar into a burning phallus and, by the time of his death, was trying like crazy to get black audiences to care about his music.

Redding died in 1967, and his legacy crystallized around this song (it's no shock that a song titled "Otis" would choose to sample it out of all the songs in the Redding catalog). With Redding installed as raw soul's G.O.A.T., "Tenderness" came to stand for soul itself. The Commitments, which was kind of like The Blues Brothers but about being poor and Irish instead of fat and awesome, treated "Tenderness" as a sacred object, faithfully recreating Redding's performance as the film's inconclusive, if rewarding climax. This was theme-park soul. Ray Noble had debuted "Tenderness" as a socializing agent, an instruction manual. Crosby turned it into a ballad of manners. At Monterey, it was a counter-cultural jam. In The Commitments, soul is the beautiful music of the disenfranchised and funky. Its respect for tradition is matched only by its laziness. Most of this could be said of "Otis," too. What is soul? Why, it’s Otis Redding singing “Try A Little Tenderness." Anything else would be less powerful and towering, not to mention less obvious and definitive. There’s also an element of commodification here, and listeners know it. The lyrics of “Otis” are mostly about fancy stuff, but as Jay-Z warns of a “new watch alert," licensing “Try A Little Tenderness” is like buying the Statue of Liberty. Unimaginative, and impersonal, but boy, will people get the point—and probably start wondering how much it all cost.

In this, "Otis" isn't all that different than Shrek, a kids movie that pulls out Redding’s “Try A Little Tenderness” as if it were Bing Crosby’s idea of the song, albeit with some evidence of all the song has evolved into. A donkey with an attitude needs to get at his emotionally repressed ogre friend, so he breaks into song. Just listen to the voice. It sounds so soulful, don't you agree?

Bethlehem Shoals is a founding member of FreeDarko.com as well as the Twitter account @freedarko.

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