1. Obama Gangster Rap
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rhMCiFLdJyg [1]
2. Hip Hop For Obama - Public Service Announcement
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TLHvHT7ysx8 [2]
3. Fallen Angels, feat Barack Obama
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aFj1WFPSfdc [3]
4. Common for Barack Obama
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U1dc6KcGeQw [4]
5. Representin' Obama
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p9IHM4XL_Ws [5]
6. "Party Like Obama" by The Obama Boyz
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MHqg_g8lq10 [6]
7. Do the Obama
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=maqF2FpnZy8 [7]
8. Barack Obama Rap Song
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LaMccee1iOY [8]
9. Something about the man/Yes We Can Remix
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qw4fRvFhuh4 [9]
10. Yes We Can
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jjXyqcx-mYY [10]
When it looked like Hillary Clinton was winning New Hampshire, I hit the exit poll data to see what patterns emerged. I found that compared to Iowa, there were less voters of the "Hip Hop Generation".
Jeff Chang puts the birth of this demographic at 1968 [11] given the historical importance of the year. I'll play devil's advocate and say that the HHG goes back to 1963 with :
- the Birmingham sit ins,
- Bay of Pigs,
- the broadcasting of police brutality in Alabama,
- Medgar Evars assassination
- John F. Kennedy's assassination
- the legendary March on Washington
- Malcom X's dissing of the march and MLK and call for black nationalism
- and more importantly, "The Speech" : Martin Luther King's "Let Freedom Ring, I have a dream".
For the elders of the hip hop generation, the broadcasted violence of the Alabama police had a rebirth in the Rodney King video. The phrasing of hip hop and rap echoed not only folk street songs, gospel, rock and even punk but also the grandiloquent oratory of the lettered icons of the 1960's : MLK, mX, JFK, RFK.
Common's there, along with Fallen Angels and the kids from "Representin' Obama".
Yet as I said before, for the Gen X and Millenials, Hip Hop becomes a way of speaking, of dressing, of walking, of buying, of partying. For the kids of the Hip Hop Generation, it's not just a form of musical expression. Hip Hop is a way of being.
is is important to keep in mind because it explains why in the United States the majority of consumers of hip hop are white and under 45 (although I could be talked into extending the trend back to people under 50).
The "under 45s" are from a generation exposed to multiculturalism in schools, in politics but more importantly, in popular culture. For good or bad, Hip Hop went from the Afrocentric rage of Public Enemy's "Fear of a Black Planet" to the middle-class iPod-wearing contentment of The Black Eyed Peas "Elephunk". Negritude as tool of protest has become with Hip Hop an expression of urbanism, cosmopolitanism and cool that is devoured by white hipsters, emos and young republicans alike.
Source [12]
It's why the Obama Boyz are so right on target in this compilation : Yeah, sure, it's a cheezy video and they're no Andy Samberg and Justin Timberlake, but they represent most of the people supporting Barack. They're just the singing equivalent of the photograph of teary fan boy in the Obama Girl video.
Following the cheeze factor is the guy from "Do The Obama". I love that video if only because it points to the awkward raise the roof tendencies of the candidate and turns them into a plus : Both the singer and Barack seem to have half of a white man trapped somewhere deep down inside. Either that or they both are channeling Urkel [13].
Yet there's the inherent music to the man's prose.
Hip Hop fit Obama mashups like a glo ve, not just because the man is black but because, as a late boomed who's grown up alongside HHGers, he's got that rhythm, that phrasing, that verbal swagger.
The best example of the first choice, "Obama Gangster Rap [14]", where the editing is reminiscent of Public Enemy's work from the early 80s. #2, #9 and thanks to Will.I.Am's remix of Yes We Can [15], they all show how Obama almost sings in his delivery of his speeches, making it easy to track music above them.
I actually had a blast going through these. It's amazing to me how much creativity has been unleashed from the Obama camp. I don't if I am missing something out of bias, but I have yet to see this kind of creative political energy come out of the Clinton campaign.
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