Barack Obama was in his last year of high school in 1979 when hip-hop broke out of the ghettos of New York on its way to becoming a national phenomenon.
He is in many ways a child of hip-hop, but sometimes a reluctant one. Even as the president-elect claims to “love hip-hop” he has spoken out against its more explicit lyrics. When Ludacris released “Obama’s Here” a few months ago, the Southern rapper extolled the future president’s credentials while viciously putting down Obama’s rivals. An Obama spokesman issued a stinging rebuke: “While Ludacris is a talented rapper, he should be ashamed of these lyrics.”
Yet Obama has been embraced by the hip-hop community like no presidential candidate in history. Bill Clinton was the first president to forge a bond with the ’60s and ’70s classic-rock generation (even persuading Fleetwood Mac to reunite and perform at his inaugural ball in 1993). Obama now commands the respect of the voters who came of age when hip-hop transformed pop culture.
The non-partisan group Hip-Hop Caucus and rappers T.I., Jay-Z, T Pain and others spearheaded the “Respect My Vote” campaign, which registered voters between the ages of 18 and 29, most of whom voted for Obama.
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