Hip-hop executive Jay-Z says he never understood Occupy Wall Street's protest against the 1 percent (the wealthy). The rapper-turned-businessman, in his New York Times profile, questioned the message behind the 99 percenters who camped out at Zuccotti Park near Wall Street for several weeks.

"What’s the thing on the wall, what are you fighting for?" asked Jay-Z in the interview (excerpted from the New York Daily News). "I’m not going to a park and picnic, I have no idea what to do, I don’t know what the fight is about. What do we want, do you know?"

Jay, who was criticized for selling "Occupy All Streets" T-shirts without donating any monies to the movement, feels that Occupy Wall Street’s vilifying of the wealthy is un-American.

"I think all those things need to really declare themselves a bit more clearly. Because when you just say that 'the 1 percent is that,' that’s not true," he says. "Yeah, the 1 percent that’s robbing people, and deceiving people, these fixed mortgages and all these things, and then taking their home away from them, that’s criminal, that’s bad. Not being an entrepreneur. This is free enterprise. This is what America is built on."

Occupy Wall Street plans to celebrate its 1-year anniversary on Sept. 17 with a series of events in and around Zuccotti Park. We don't expect Jay-Z will be around selling tees in tribute of their demonstration.

Watch the Jay-Z + Kane West, 'Church of the Wild' Video

More From PopCrush