Jay-Z Makes H2izz0 Crisis 'Cristal' Clear

Jay-Z boycotted premium champagne Cristal at his clubs after the brand's owner made some remarks he didn't like. Now the rap superstar has a new favorite drink: water.

Jay-Z, president of Def Jam Records, teamed up with the United Nations and MTV on Wednesday to get children involved in the fight against the worldwide water crisis. He cited statistics that 1.1 billion people live without clean drinking water and 2.6 billion lack proper sanitation.

"I figure that once I stumbled upon that, if the information was out and young people knew that these problems exist while we're having Poland Springs at Cipriani and things like that, that we'll get involved," said the 36-year-old rapper, referring to the high-class restaurant chain.

Jay-Z, whose real name is Shawn Carter, said he had been looking for a way to help people, and when he visited Africa on tour he was struck at how many of the world's poor lacked such a basic necessity.

"As I started looking around and looking at ways that I could become helpful, it started at the first thing — water, something as simple as water," he said at a news conference at U.N. headquarters. "It took very little, very little to see these numbers."

MTV film crews will follow the rapper on his worldwide tour, which begins Sept. 9. "The Diary of Jay-Z: Water for Life" will feature first-person accounts of meetings with people around the world who lack water, MTV President Christina Norman said.