The greatest music, renowned hip-hop artist Jay-Z told Jon Stewart on "The Daily Show" Wednesday, has the ability to connect with all kinds of people, regardless of background.

“After we take the labels – black, white, male, female – after we take off the labels, we basically want the same thing, we love the same things,” Jay-Z explained. “The commonality of those emotions: angst, fear, aspiration… [A]t the core of great music is some of those emotions [and] that’s what people connect to.”

Yet in spite of that, rap hasn't been viewed as a respectable art form, Jay said. “It was viewed as a fad, and then it became a scapegoat for everything in America," he told Stewart. Not that he’s talking about all rap – “because some of it is [expletive],” he said – but rather “provocative, great rap based on real life subjects and emotions...[I]t’s almost like being attacked for saying what’s happening anyway. Whether rap existed or not these things were going on in the community, daily.”

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