Ludacris, Obama & A Parade Of Idiocy


Originally I wasn’t planning on writing about the whole Ludacris – Barack Obama - "Politics as Usual" situation, but over the past week quite a few people have asked my opinion about it and since I love to take requests here at Adam’s World I’ve decided to let my thoughts be known. To put it succinctly, I think everyone involved is being an idiot.

Let’s start with Luda. I had a great interview with Luda just a few short months ago, but in the case of his song "Politics as Usual" he was a bit of an idiot. I understand Luda supports Obama, and has for quite a while, but this isn’t a rap battle, this is a presidential election. There was no need to call out Hillary Clinton and John McCain in his song like they were rival emcees who are primed to jump into the studio and write a diss track in reply. Let’s ignore, for a moment, the fact that there’s a good chance Ludacris was right on the money with his assessment of the former first lady; what did he stand to gain by calling her a bitch? Nothing. Sadly, in “Politics as Usual” Luda has created a song that will make every critic of Hip-Hop say “that’s rap music, as usual,” and as Hip-Hop fans we all know he’s better than that.

Moving to Barack Obama, all of his people, or at least the ones commenting on this situation, are idiots for so quickly distancing Obama from one of his longtime supporters over a simple song that was only going to be known within the Hip-Hop community had no one from Obama's camp brought it up. I honestly feel that if everyone had just kept their mouths shut about this it would have taken weeks before any non-Hip-Hop folks even found out about the track. Instead Obama’s people managed to give him potentially bad publicity with a community that he had the support of. There was also no need to denounce it. Is Luda an Obama supporter? Yes. Have they had meetings? Yes. Did Obama ask him to make the song or fund it in any way? No. You can’t control art, but if this is an insight into Team Obama’s ways of thinking about art we might have something to worry about.

Finally, the political pundits who know nothing about Hip-Hop calling out Luda in regards to this song are also idiots. They’re making claims about how offended they are by “Politics as Usual.” Really? We have a war raging on where people are dying, a real life war that can be stopped depending on who gets elected, and you’re choosing to get offended by a rap song? Have we really had the focus on the election shifted, even for five seconds, a freaking SONG!?!? This goes to show how ridiculous and non-thinking our nation truly is. Forget the real issues, let’s complain about music.

In the end all the “Politics as Usual” situation is proving is how far those running for office will go to try to placate everybody. It would have been nice to see Obama and his people stick with Hip-Hop when the going got tough, but sadly, at the first instance of anything controversial we were told to clean up our act or get out. In a perfect world Obama would have said something like “Ludacris is supporting me in his own unique way. The way he goes about his craft is why his fans love him so much. If you want comments on the content of the song you should speak with him. I’m sure he’d be more than happy to explain it.”

Unfortunately, in an ironic twist, “Politics as Usual” is revealing just that.

Comments

JW Doom said…
Fox News would have eventually gotten a hold of the song and used it to remind American good ole boys just how bad "those people" are. Obama was right to jump on this one right away.
Adam Bernard said…
I disagree. Had FoxNews been the people to talk about this first it would have made it really easy for Obama to make them look bad. All he would have had to say is "look at what the other side wants to talk about... music. We have people dying in an unjust war and they want you to focus on a song."
kats said…
That's assuming that people are neither stupid, nor racist...which is not a safe assumption. The truth is for this guy to win, he has to do what he's doing. And one of the best things the hip-hop community could do to help Obama win is play it cool...let's celebrate and endorse once it's all said and done. Until then...no Ludacris endorsement will help gain new votes, so shhhh.
JW Doom said…
No one who watches Fox News regularly thinks the war is unjust. I doubt very many people even willing to watch it think that. So that's a null issue.

Remember the "character counts" people who were so pissed off about Clinton & Lewinsky? Those are the people who would shake their head at Luda soundbites. Again, Obama did the right thing.

Try to think like someone who doesn't know many black people, only knows about rap from the news. If even someone less execrable than O'Reilly calls those lyrics into question (and you know CNN would have covered it, if only to keep up with FNC), your needle just moved away from Obama.
Moka said…
And i thought the Herds 77% made a big uproar here in Australia, but once again the US has to go and be bigger than everywhere else.
Claudia Alick said…
Thanks for writing about this. I long to live in a world where my art has the ability to shift great world events but for real folks need to get their heads straight. Obama's camp played it wrong. They had a chance to take a lead on the conversation and frame it in a way that allowed Obama to disagree with the content and still support the artist and the genre. Instead they took the frame fox news would have given it and came off as reactionary. Sigh. Also I wish artists woudn't think that just cause they good at one thing they're good at everything. Not everyone can do activist art. not everyne can make a track that sums up the political reality and you can shake your ass to. Luda shoulda collaborated with somebody a little more savvy about activist art.

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