Hip-Hop Mogul Joins Others in Calling For the Rich To ‘Pay Their Fair Share’

"All my employees -- every single one -- paid more taxes than I did," Russell Simmons, co-founder of the Def Jam label, told MSNBC's Martin Bashir on Thursday. "We need to make the rich pay their fair share."

This is not the first time that Simmons, whose estimated net worth is $340 million, has called for the government to raise taxes on the wealthy. Now he and Warren Buffett have something in common.

Simmons also issued the request in a blog post on Wednesday.

“I believe in a nation where everyone gets a fair share of the fruits of our labor and where everyone pays a fair share for what they receive,” he wrote on his site. “I am asking the United States government to raise my taxes and not allow the Republicans to use this economic recession as an opportunity to strip the basic programs that protect our most vulnerable.”

Asked by Bashir whether raising taxes on the wealthy would exasperate an already staggering recovery, Simmons was unmoved.

"I hired based on pre-tax profit, not post-tax," said Simmons.

He continued: "We need to organize all the working class and underserved communities to go to work to fight off this money grab... that a great number of the [rich] corporations and individuals to undermine opportunities to give opportunity and resources to the poor."

On Wednesday, Simmons joined the "Occupy Wall Street" protests in downtown Manhattan to emphasize his message of taking a stance against "corporate greed," according to Mogulite.

"And most of the country would seem to agree with the drive to raise taxes on the rich," the Huffington Post reported. "In a recent survey, nearly three-quarters of all respondents -- and two-thirds of Republicans -- said they would support President Obama's proposal to tax millionaire households at the same rate as the middle class."

Sure they do.

Watch the MSNBC interview: