PrObama Music

By Rachel Rogol & Hadas deGroot

SOMETHING ABOUT BARACK OBAMA MAKES US WANNA...DANCE. Maybe it’s the smooth speeches that get us excited. Or his endearing disposition. Or maybe it’s his bad-boy attitude? Whatever the case, we’d like to thank the music artists who supported Obama’s campaign for giving us a party mix to dance to.

On November 4th, Barack Obama was elected 44th President of the United States of America after what many political analysts call an almost flawless campaign. Though its influence is debatable, the music industry had an increasing presence in this year’s election. In a 2008 interview with Rolling Stone, Obama stated that he believes music will soon reflect the growing call for political change coming from today’s youth. He was right. Obama’s candidacy inspired artists to create more unsolicited music and music videos than any other candidate in American political history. Artists such as Nas, the National, and Ti$a wrote kick-ass tributes that reached the younger generation.

Nas’ song “Black President” sends a powerful message highlighting the significance of Obama’s nomination. The song features Tupac lyrics, “Although it seems heaven sent/We ain’t ready to have a black president.” As these words recall feelings from the past, voice clips from Obama’s speeches simultaneously send us a message of hope: “They told us this day would never come, they said our sights were set too high, they said this country was too divided, too disillusioned, to ever come together around a common purpose.” The resulting song is an incredibly powerful and positive ballad about the progress the Change campaign represents.

The National also showed Obama their support. They designed a T-shirt featuring the President-elect’s picture with the caption “Mr. November.” Their song with the same title includes the lyrics “I’m the new blue blood/ I’m the great white hope/ I won’t fuck us over/ I’m Mr. November.” As our generation, screams for a political makeover, Obama represents this hope for renewal in our government. But if you feel like we do, that Obama’s campaign called for a real dance party, the best song for you is Ti$a’s “Obamaway.” The lyrics encouraged us to dance our way to the voting booth: “This is real and not for play/ I’mma vote Obamaway/ We hood, we votin’ and throwin’ it up!” It’ll be stuck in your head for hours after your first listen. The call for voting and throwing it up had everyone excited; the video for “Obamaway” features cameos by Jay-Z, Kanye West, and Travis Barker.

These are a few of the many examples of how Obama’s campaign inspired creativity in artists. Support from these musicians helped spread the word about the importance of the youth vote. So with our musicians at the lead, young people should be really excited about making the next four years a dance party.

NOT FEELIN’ THE MAVERICK?

Whereas Barack Obama experienced an enormous amount of support from some musical artists, John McCain seemed to have been plagued by an utter lack of support from others. Although the campaign organizers obtained the rights to use songs in rallies and ads from record companies, artists who did not give consent to this explicit use feverishly protested.

Among some of these artists were John Mellencamp, Bruce Springsteen, Ann and Nancy Wilson of Heart, Van Halen, ABBA, Jackson Browne, and the Foo Fighters. The Foo Fighters asked the campaign to discontinue its use of the song “My Hero” from further McCain events. In the band’s statement, the song was “written as celebration of the common man and his extraordinary potential,” and they go on to say that “to have the song appropriated without our knowledge and used in a manner that perverts the original sentiment of the lyric just tarnishes the song.” Guess there wasn’t much love for the self-proclaimed maverick.