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Can I say something?

I know y'all think-- And turn my mic up.

The show of love, I'll never forget it.

A lot of people right now, the people in the Barack Obama campaign,

just everybody who helped get everything.

Everybody who was out in the street getting votes and all that shit.

Yeah!

It was so much energy.

You would've thought we all won.

It was electrifying.

This our moment, we, you know, our guy's in the White House

and I do my verse, you know, club goes crazy

and then I pass the mic to Jay-Z.

♪ Anybody feel me? ♪

♪ My president is Black, in fact he's half white ♪

♪ So even in a racist mind, he's half right ♪

♪ So if you got a racist mind, it's alright ♪

♪ My president is Black, but his house is all white ♪

I feel like it helped him become the first Black president

because when you connect hip-hop culture

and our movement to that movement he had,

I feel like it was, it was set up to win.

You know what I'm saying? It was already written.

Hip-hop speaks truth to power.

The President of the United States of America is the power.

This is the story of how hip-hop got the power.

We know Donald Trump did heard it.

You know what I'm saying?

Well, Reagan's the father of crack cocaine as far as we're concerned.

President Obama said, "Wow, we really keeping it real here."

To tell you the truth, I believe that Clinton liked hip-hop.

Little Bush? Little Bush was around.

Call me racist.

In 2020, Obama put me on his summer playlist.

I'm still the only president

to listen to Jay-Z's music in the Oval Office.

Donald Trump, like he's a real nigga 'cause he's unapologetic.

We got Kanye in the White House saying, "Free Larry Hoover."

Can we affect policy?

There's a lot of people come in that room and do nothing in that room.

The letter from the White House is mo' crazy to me

than Donald Trump hearing the song.

This is Hip-Hop and The White House.

Let's get it.

And now, to present the excitement of youth, the sights,

and the sounds of a big city,

here are New York City Breakers.

Hip-hop has been connected to presidents from the jump.

The culture was created 50 years ago by DJs, breakers,

graffiti artists, and rappers responding to a life of oppression.

This environment was the result of policies

that came straight out of the White House.

So I lived in different sections of the Bronx growing up all of my life,

playing in empty lots,

you know, just with rubble all around, bouncing on mattresses and...

I mean, it was what it was.

We didn't know what was behind us being there until later on.

I remember when Jimmy Carter came to the Bronx,

it was a big deal.

What preceded it?

That was Gerald Ford who was the president

who basically told New York City to kick rocks

when we were going through our financial hardships in the '70s

and he said, "We're not gonna bail out New York."

That had a direct correlation to the conditions

that would lead rise to hip-hop.

Prior to that was Richard Nixon who started a war on drugs.

So those conditions of oppression

that was coming in from the highest office of the land.

But real hip-hop was always about doing our own thing

within our own community.

You're gonna give us garbage,

we're gonna turn it into a billion dollar something.

That was always the attitude.

Hip-hop has always been political

because of the context in which it was created.

When President Reagan took office in January 1981,

I was just a baby growing up in Georgia.

I didn't know anything about Reaganomics.

That was Reagan's budget policy

that slashed funding in the poor neighborhoods

and gave tax breaks to the wealthy.

When President Reagan would come on television

and say things like, "We're gonna cut this budget and cut that budget,"

people don't realize that the very next day something happened,

meaning something was missing from your community

and we could see it happening in real time.

My fellow citizens,

the matter that brings me before you today is a grave one

and concerns my most solemn duty as president.

It is the cause of freedom in Central America

and the national security of the United States.

There was a storm brewing.

It was a political storm and I just didn't have any idea what it was gonna be

until I saw the effects of it.

We was expecting for it to be rain, but crack rained down,

and that was the storm that was coming.

The crack cocaine epidemic hit America during Reagan's presidency,

but there was some things none of us understood at the time.

Reagan administration officials knew

Central American drug traffickers

were importing cocaine into our neighborhoods.

Why didn't Reagan's government stop these drugs from coming in?

Because the sales were funding military conflicts

that the Reagan administration was supporting.

Imagine that.

♪ Oliver North introduced us to cocaine ♪

♪ In the '80s when them bricks came on military planes ♪

What I discovered was that some of this was known about,

uh, by the CIA and maybe the DA and others.

Now, all of a sudden there was this,

this new thing running around called crack.

It would be for years that we actually got it confirmed

that Reagan and the CIA and his war to, to fund the war

was the reason why that happened.

Well, Reagan's the father of crack cocaine as far as we're concerned,

the whole Iran Contra, Oliver North,

the whole weapons, the coke, the whole thing.

Crack blew up and so did hip-hop at the same exact time.

They actually grew up together.

Hip-hop grew out of the crack era.

All of that is a part of hip-hop's real and actual history,

which makes Ronald Reagan part of hip-hop's real and natural history.

The way I see Reagan connected to hip-hop

is giving us something to rap about.

Because of the influx of these drugs,

because of what's going on in those communities.

You know, you get records like The Message

"Rats in the front room, roaches in the back,

junkies in the alley with that baseball bat."

"I have a bum education, double-digit inflation,

can't take the train to the job, there's a strike at the station."

"Don't push me 'cause I'm clo--"

This is describing oppression,

straight up and down.

Somebody speaking our plight,

somebody's giving us our existence,

somebody understands what we going through.

♪ It's like a jungle sometimes ♪

♪ It makes me wonder how I keep from going under ♪

Life is hard.

I mean, for the average person, life is extra hard

and Message tapped into that emotion

and I think that's the politic behind it,

you know, it was a real-life emotion.

Even, you know, throughout my whole life

you could see where something is wrong in politics.

You know, you could figure out where the, where the scam is, you know what I mean?

After his reelection, Reagan brought the New York City Breakers

to perform at his inauguration,

the first official contact

between hip-hop and the White House.

It's not Reagan loving hip-hop,

you can't tell me it's Reagan loving hip-hop,

but it's a political move.

The fact that it's being used or exploited

in a way, it's like a give-and-take.

Alright. You use me, I use you.

Our neighborhoods continued to suffer

through Reagan's second term

and hip-hop narrated the whole drama.

Too Short, Ice-T, Toddy Tee, Public Enemy.

Those are just a few rappers who reveal

what Reagan's so-called war on drugs did to the places where hip-hop lived.

Then came a record that changed the whole game.

I was 11 when I heard it, it went a little something like this...

♪ Searching my car, looking for the product ♪

♪ Thinking every nigga is selling narcotics ♪

The year was 1988.

The group was N.W.A.

Dr. Dre, Ice Cube, MC Ren, DJ Yella,

and a dope dealer named Eazy-E.

♪ While I'm driving off laughing, this is what I'll say ♪

♪ Fuck the police ♪

- ♪ Fuck, fuck ♪

♪ Fuck the police ♪

- ♪ Fuck, fuck ♪

Hip-hop and its relationship

with the White House would never be the same.

When I heard it and then there was so much talk about it,

I just thought it was a revelation that had taken place

and that's what a lot of people were thinking.

They just didn't have the nerve to say it.

It was political because the police have been thought of

as the saviors that keep the communities safe and secure

and they were untouchable in terms of criticism.

For him to have the courage to say F the police,

uh, was new, different, and exciting.

It wasn't exciting to the federal government.

Reagan's vice president George H.W. Bush was elected

to replace him in the White House.

The FBI sent the group a threatening letter

and then Eazy-E pulled a real gangster move.

He's not a presidential advisor yet,

but his rap has gained him entry to the Republican elite.

You might not have guessed

that Eazy-E, Eric Wright is his real name,

would be among this group of well-off Republicans who paid $1,250

to become members of something called the Republican Inner Circle

who were waiting in line today to hear law-and-order man George Bush

at a private, members only reception.

In the scheme of presidential politics,

I think Eazy-E rests in a place of, um...

He's a precedent.

He is, uh, an early stage

of our political awareness.

He does hold the title of being one of the first,

if not the first, a major rap figure, uh,

to engage with the White House in this kind of meaningful way.

That means that we are in there.

That means that we have definitely

broken down barriers and walls.

You're only placed in certain rooms by the influence that you hold.

It's not you, the one person that's in the room that they're allowing.

They're allowing everyone that's associated with you,

that listens to you, that follows you in the room at that point.

But you gotta also ask what did he get out of it?

Did hip-hop win with anything with that?

Did we gain anything?

That's a fair question.

There's one thing that hip-hop gained for sure,

the attention of a young governor with his eyes on the White House.

Some Americans were completely shocked at the verdict

in the Rodney King case and the violence which followed.

At least nine people dead, more than 400 injured,

nearly a thousand in jail.

There was no justice in America today,

and I'm glad they showed it to the world.

Let me set the scene.

It was 1992,

Bill Clinton was running for president as a Democrat.

He wanted to send a message to moderate white voters

that he was a safe choice.

So he went to Reverend Jesse Jackson and his Rainbow Coalition Conference

and decided to criticize a young Black rapper and activist.

You had a, a rap singer here last night

named Sister Souljah.

I defend her right to express herself through music.

But her comments before and after Los Angeles

were filled with the kind of hatred that you do not honor today and tonight.

Many people believe Clinton took Souljah's statements out of context.

He too wanted to capture some of those people

who thought that there was some danger, uh, in the hip-hop community,

uh, with rappers, uh, with young Black people

who were denouncing them.

He was a brilliant politician

in understanding the need to triangulate

among the different constituencies in America.

So he was more than willing

to throw young Black folks under the bus

in order to make people feel more secure

who already had a bias against young Black people.

The rap singer Governor Clinton had criticized last weekend rapped back.

Considerable time has been spent debating whether America

should take seriously the words of a rap artist

or so-called entertainers.

Let me clarify for the press now who I am.

I am Sister Souljah, Sony, epic, rapper,

activist, organizer, and lecturer.

I have spoken on the same platform with Jesse Jackson,

Minister Louis Farrakhan, Reverend Ben Chavis,

Reverend Dr. Calvin Butts and Nelson Mandela.

As you can see, I am no newcomer to the world of politics and movements.

I met Sister Souljah at Howard University, '88, '89.

Around that time, I traveled around the country with her,

uh, and spoke at schools and jails and other things like that.

So we became really close.

Obviously, she was incensed by this,

uh, but she also was, like, smart and strategic enough

to understand what this was about

and wanted to respond to it in a way, uh,

that she thought, uh, would, would have impact.

I stand before you today feeling very confident,

steadfast, and powerful.

At the same time, I am surprised

that as a young African woman

I have impacted and affected the development

of not only national politics, but international politics as well.

Just really articulating

how powerful we had become as a hip-hop community

that the president of the United States would feel that he could gain something

by attacking, uh, this movement at that time.

Like, she just, boom.

And she's smarter than him.

You not gonna be able to come back from this, bro.

Not with her.

But Clinton did come back.

His tactics helped him get elected president five months later.

Then he invited LL Cool J to perform at his inauguration.

I remember all the girls having a crush on LL

when I was in middle school,

and he was smart, sexy, and ambitious.

And I think when he took the stage, um,

he understood that this was gonna broaden his audience.

So instead of Clinton triangulating him,

he was triangulating on the Clintons.

That was an incredible transition for us.

Not only are we in the White House,

but now we are part of the White House,

especially on its biggest day,

on its biggest stage on the hugest platform.

1992, Bill Clinton is elected.

Young Jeezy is literally young Jeezy, 15, 16 years old.

What is your life like and what hip-hop are you listening to?

I think I'm playing Bun B, um,

a lot of West Coast music at the time.

A lot of West Coast music.

Uh, N.W.A for sure.

I'm living with my grandmother, and music is my life.

That's, that's how I'm navigating through things

because I'm basically learning through the music.

Tupac was my first introduction into politics.

Pac was naming out senators,

he was talking about district attorneys

and, you know, it's like I didn't even know what this stuff was.

It made me go ask the questions, "What is a senator?"

You know, "What makes the president the president?"

The Clinton years were an era

where we saw the growth of hip-hop

towards the global industry it has now become.

You got New Orleans entering the game,

you got Houston being a big factor.

A lot of the content is changing.

Goodbye, Sister Souljah.

Hello, Lil' Kim.

This was before music moved to the Internet.

Hip-hop fans bought hundreds of millions of CDs.

The hood made more money than ever,

selling records and selling dope.

The music industry is starting to push

a lot of the more political artists out.

You still have political artists,

but they're not within the mainstream.

The superstructure itself

decide to make a very conscious shift, to not play certain things,

to not talk about certain music, right?

They would put on the radio,

somebody talking about shooting you

or degrading your character as opposed to Public Enemy.

After Clinton, came George W. Bush.

When Bush started dropping bombs on Iraq,

rap music was hustling and popping champagne

but underneath all that,

the hip-hop generation was gathering political power.

By the time you get to the early 2000s,

there is a generation of young people who saw

the power and influence of hip-hop

could be used to transform the country and our communities.

And so they began to organize under the banner of hip-hop.

We had Rap the Vote, the Hip-Hop Summit Action Network,

the League of Young Voters.

As Bush ran for reelection,

Bakari Kitwana and Ras Baraka

cofounded the National Hip-Hop Political Convention.

Three thousand people from across the country

attended in the summer of 2004.

All over the country, all over the world,

people were listening to hip-hop music

and we influenced the way people dressed, what they drink,

what they thought, the words they said.

Right? We influenced so much stuff.

So we thought that we could, like, bottle that influence,

if you will, like package it

and begin to use it specifically to help us in our community

to, to change our conditions.

There hadn't been a concerted effort to bring this power

of hip-hop to the national level.

What if we can turn this same type

of influence onto electoral policy?

It would completely change the game.

Early 2000s, straight up out the trunk, you know,

paying for my own music, uh, printing up CDs,

you know, doing shows and, and, uh, venues that didn't have stages.

It was like I was on my grind

and I was just trying to figure out my voice

and my identity like, and, and a lot of what I was doing

was coming from a lot of the influence that I got from Pac.

I was like, "Yo, you know, I'm gonna motivate myself

and others in the process."

And that was like my mindset,

um, and also watching what was going on with the world.

I remember seeing, uh, Hillary Clinton

in 2004 sitting next to Diddy at the Democratic Convention.

MTV had Diddy interview her there.

He had his own, you know, Vote or Die.

And-and Clinton kept talking about how much that, you know,

he hit the nail on the head with the phrase, "Vote or Die."

And I saw some people walking across the street

with the Vote or Die shirt and it didn't register then.

And when I started to make this project I was working on, uh,

the first record I came up with,

I was like, I want this to be like a national anthem for the streets.

I was like, "Yo, trap or die," it's gonna be a movement

because I saw what they was doing,

but I was like, how can this,

how can I have my movement in the streets?

And it's like I really ran that whole campaign,

like a presidential, uh, campaign

because what I saw them doing, I just went and emulated that.

♪ ...die, nigga ♪

♪ Yeah ♪

♪ We trap or die, nigga ♪

♪ Mix the flake with the soda, you got Young Jeezy ♪

♪ Damn ♪

♪ You still wanna talk blow man ♪

♪ Soft white like Alaska, call me snowman ♪

Even though most of hip-hop lined up

against Bush in the 2004 election, he still won.

But the power of hip-hop was felt.

In 2004, youth voter participation

increased nine percent from the year 2000.

It represents Black people

and hip-hop mobilizing for power, right?

Hip-hop continues to speak truth to power.

We bear witness to so much trauma and abuse.

There's so many people that we know

and that we've come across and walk through life with

and care for and love deeply,

who simply, no one will ever know their struggle,

and no one speaks for them.

And that's where that comes from, from a lot of hip-hop records.

It's not even about their own personal experience,

but they're speaking for the person

that they know cannot speak for themselves.

And if you don't say something, these people will have gone

through this life with no one ever really even knowing they existed.

The population of New Orleans is 67% Black.

So it's not surprising that the face of suffering

in that city this week has been largely African American.

The slow response to the victims of Hurricane Katrina

has led to questions about race, poverty, and a seemingly indifferent government.

I noticed that especially in New Orleans, that the response is greater

when it's white compared to when it's Black.

And if those areas that are named

where people are not having food and water

is generally the Black population.

Enter Kanye West.

Ye was on a telethon raising money for hurricane victims

with millions of people watching.

Kanye did what Melle Mel, Eazy-E and Public Enemy had done before.

Ye gave us a bar that captured exactly how hip-hop felt.

"George Bush doesn't care about Black people."

When Ye said, "George Bush doesn't care about Black people,"

that was supremely important.

It needed to be said like, "No, we know what's up.

"We know who you are.

You ain't fooling us and we gonna expose you."

Kanye really hit a nerve,

and not just Black people, but white people

and people of every race saw the failure

of the US government to protect its own citizens.

My mom's house, wiped out.

A few of my homeys died in that shit,

and, um, one of my, one of my partners,

his cousin, like, drowned right behind him.

He just got tired and told him like, just fuck it.

Like, like, go ahead. I'm too tired for this shit.

And just went under the water.

Black people were seen on television begging for help.

There had been no real plans in the New Orleans area

to deal with such a disaster.

And nobody came for a long time.

It was a horrible situation.

Who was the state representatives in Louisiana?

We argue with the things our president should do,

when the people that actually are head of our state should be doing.

No, they didn't. They didn't.

Why do we even look for help

if we knew it was help-- wasn't help in the very beginning?

George Bush took a plane

and, um, you know, did a tour over the area

and he said something about the FEMA director was doing a good job.

Again, I wanna thank you all for--

And, Brownie, you're doing a heck of a job.

The FEMA director's working 24--

He must be crazy.

They're not doing a good job. These people are suffering.

When Kanye said that, it hit home.

The quote, "George Bush doesn't care about Black people"

is one of the most memorable lines in hip-hop history.

It landed on the White House like a bomb.

Trust and believe, the president felt the blast.

Called me a racist and I didn't appreciate it then

and I don't, I don't appreciate it now.

It's one thing to say, you know,

I don't appreciate the way he's handled his business.

It's another thing to say, this man's a racist.

I resent it. It's not true.

And it's one of the most disgusting moments of my presidency.

George Bush needed to hear that, and he...

and he heard it.

It had a powerful effect

and that's how powerful hip-hop had become.

Bush's response was fascinating.

The question was, what was the most, uh,

controversial moment of your presidency or something like that.

He asked him, right?

And so it's deep that he's sitting there and that's what he thinks of.

You know what I thought of when he's in Egypt

or somewhere in the Middle East

and somebody throws a shoe at him, right?

I was like, "Well, damn, what about the shoe?"

You had a shoe thrown at you during a press conference

and you still talking about Kanye?

Kanye was, in a moment, um, just a catalyst for a truth

that needed to be screamed the way that it was.

Very influential, legendary moment that I don't think you forget.

Bush is in his second term.

Tell me about where you were in your career.

I was thuggin'.

Shit.

I was, uh, relentlessly in the streets, you know what I'm saying?

I was a totally different individual

and I was trying to get out of the struggle

and also, like, taking the music thing seriously.

I was... getting outside of my circle, you know what I'm saying?

Just outside of just the street politics.

So I got credit cards and things so I can move around to some nice places.

Once I got in the rooms, I started asking the questions, right?

I always like to consider myself the people's champ, right?

And my job is to get the information back to the culture.

I connected it in a way that I would say

when I was listening to music that Pac and N.W.A,

and those guys connected me

because it was in the language that I speak

for people who have been following my movement.

They're like, "Hold up, if he's concerned about this

"and if he's feeling like this is important,

um, then maybe I should check into it."

And that's when I wrote The Recession.

What an extraordinary weekend on the campaign trail

with two leading candidates for the Democratic presidential nomination

campaigning full-bore,

even though the general election is more than a year and a half away.

Barack Obama, who formally announced on Saturday

and Hillary Clinton are pulling no punches.

Senator Barack Obama is watching Black political leaders

throw support to Hillary Clinton, and why?

They have said publicly they don't think America

is ready to elect a Black candidate.

He was on the struggle bus for the first part

of the 2008 campaign and he did need hip-hop.

He did need a validation of his Blackness

and his viability with Black voters.

And Black voters were very slow to warm to him.

Lately, I've been listening to a lot of Jay-Z.

I mean this, this new American Gangster,

it tells a story and, uh, and, you know,

uh, you know, he's...

as Jay would say, "He got flow."

Honestly, I love the art of hip-hop.

I don't always love the message of hip-hop,

sometimes degrading to women,

not only uses the N-word a little too frequently,

but also something I'm really concerned about

is always talking about material things.

We organize a fundraiser for Obama.

I think we raised $250,000 or something

with the thinking that we were gonna be able

to meet and bring the issues of the hip-hop community

before the would-be next president.

But he wouldn't meet with us.

So we didn't give him the money.

Obama was being careful not to offend certain voters

by getting too close to hip-hop,

but he knew how to send us a message.

When you're running for the presidency,

then you've gotta expect it.

Uh, and, you know, you've just gotta kinda let it...

You know.

That was him telling us like, "Go to the polls

"because I am, I am totally in tune.

"I'm in the car with you,

so I need you to be in the car with me."

He's a real nigga!

Yeah, bro, that's what I thought, bro.

If you know, you know, some people might have saw him do that

and thought, "Oh, okay," they might not have known 'cause...

♪ You better get that dirt off your shoulders ♪

Like, they don't know that that was an anthem.

Obama really did need some shine from, from the streets.

How did I become aware of Barack Obama?

Uh, I was sitting in this, um, restaurant we love in Atlanta...

um, called Spondivits.

And he was on the news channel

and when I heard him speak it, it, it felt like

he was talking to and for me.

And I was like, "Damn."

Like, I've never...

felt like I can connect with somebody

that could possibly be the president

and I would find myself, like, catching stuff he said online

or catching stuff that he was saying on the news channels.

Like, I'm just like, "Man, like, I really believe in his heart,

like, he really wants to make a change."

I think with Obama, I saw myself.

It was very clear that he identified in a Black man

and he was very deeply entrenched in Black culture.

I definitely wanted to make sure I'm not only on the right side of history,

but I was active in the moment.

We felt like Obama had spoken to us

and we wanted to make sure that the people

who maybe were not tuned in politically

like we were understood the message.

Like, hey, you must not know.

Like, this is a new time, this is a new age.

This the man right here. Y'all need to come on in.

Barack Obama for me,

this is respectfully, I say this about the president.

I never, I never had a-a feeling

that he would change nothing.

I-I just, I-I literally just knew like,

bro, this man is not about to change shit.

One of my first art projects is literally a portrait of Barack Obama,

and I did it in sixth grade.

The idea of a Black president to an 11-year-old kid,

an 11-year-old Black kid who lives in Montgomery, Alabama.

Um... We were ready.

It was like, I, I was aware, hyperaware of racism

and, and, um... segregation

and, and things that had plagued my hometown

and also our history as a people.

Uh, so the idea that we were gonna have one in the White House,

it was like, oh, like, y'all finna--

Everything's about to change.

The Recession album was done.

And I hear this, this beat

and I'm just walking around the house

and I keep singing in my head, "My president is Black,"

and I look at my man, I say,

"Yo, I'ma go to the studio and drop this."

And he was like, "Man, the album's done. You know the..."

I said, "No, I'm just gonna cut it 'cause I, 'cause I feel it."

So later on that day we go to the studio, knock it out

and I'm like, "Yo, this is it.

This is how I'ma end the album."

♪ My president is Black ♪

♪ My Lambo's blue ♪

♪ And I be... if my rims ain't too ♪

♪ My mama ain't at home and daddy's still in jail ♪

♪ Tryin' to make a plate, ain't nobody seen the... ♪

♪ My president is... ♪

Everybody that was in the studio was like, "It sounds good,

"but, uh, if he doesn't win, you gonna look crazy

"'cause the album comes out now

"and, and, and, and it's gonna be like, you know,

almost five months away from the, um, from the election."

You know, I was like, "No, he's gonna win."

You know what I'm saying?

Like, he's-he's gonna win the election.

Young Jeezy fuckin' elected President Obama.

He definitely, like, got more people to the polls with a song.

People who never planned on going to the polls.

I'm like, "Oh, you're here because of Jeezy." Like, this...

"You've never, you've never done this before.

I got you, but we're glad to have you."

When he won, I jumped in my Lamborghini,

I drove through the city, I went on Peachtree, let my doors up.

I was playing My President is Black.

Everybody was, you know, just, it was like a parade.

Everybody's like, "We did it, Jeezy, we did it."

I'm like, "Yeah, we did it."

Every car, every house, every apartment.

It's, it's like, that's all you heard.

That's all you heard.

The show of love,

they knew who I was in that room,

the man of the hour.

And mind you, nobody know Jay-Z did the remix.

I had been, you know, celebration.

I, I was lit, you know what I'm saying?

I was, you know, about five bottles in.

So I might have said some things that was, uh, on my heart.

My president is motherfucking Black, nigga!

It was bigger than just the song, uh, you know,

this was a moment in time for us

and I felt like, you know,

this, this was the one time I could do some good.

You know what I'm saying?

And, and we did. We did good.

It's an honor, uh, to be here in the White House Library

NPR Music presents Common.

Thank you.

- Beautiful. - Thank you so much.

♪ Freedom ♪

♪ Freedom come ♪

♪ Hold on, won't be long ♪

♪ Freedom ♪

♪ Freedom come ♪

♪ Hold on, won't be long ♪

Man, the emotions...

and feelings I had walking into the White House

to greet President Barack Obama

and First Lady Michelle Obama.

I was overwhelmed and,

and I had this spiritual feeling that like...

"What did I do to be able to get here?"

♪ We let go to free them so we could free us ♪

♪ America's moment to come to Jesus, come on ♪

The journey hip-hop has taken from the back house to the White House.

It makes me think about our ancestors.

They helped build that White House

and at a time where we were enslaved.

The progress that we've made as Black people

in, in this country,

Black and brown when it comes to hip-hop,

it's one of the greatest gifts.

And we did it, like, we did it.

It was life-blowing, mind-blowing.

It shook my soul in a good way.

Obama was the first hip-hop president.

He understood that the hip-hop culture was here

and that it was having great influence.

And he identified with that.

Obama just swagged out, dawg. You know what I'm saying?

Obama just, he be hooping, you know what I'm saying?

Athletes and hip-hop, we go together.

The struggle that, that artists talk about in their music,

we have that same struggle, we have that same grind.

You use your life and what you've been through and your struggles

and you try to make that your future.

My first trip to the White House was crazy

because, you know, this was his first term.

He's a hooper. And so, we were like, "Hey, you trying to hoop?"

So we played HORSE with him at the White House.

I'm not gonna lie, he got a little J.

He has a little J on him.

He be doing all this like...

Like, he like a, uh,

like Obama, like a uncle.

Uncle Obama. What up, dawg?

How you doing today, man? You good?

Obama was tapped in, bro.

Obama did what any smart brother would do.

Hip-hop helped him get elected.

So he returned the favor.

Obama became the first president

to invite multiple rappers into the White House.

You have a Black man in the White House,

you have hip-hop as a global force

and you have it all together in perfect configuration.

They formed this incredible phalanx

of institutional arts and culture and politics.

There was this mutual admiration of powerful forces

and I think it really stunned a lot of people.

That's how you knew that he was your brother

because he did what your brother would do if he got into a good position.

Your homey gonna call you.

"Yo, I'm in this big ass house, and they got TV there,

I think you could just pull up."

I'm gonna keep it a book, you know?

'Cause I ain't gonna do nothing that ain't a hundred.

When I saw Obama inviting all those rappers,

I was a little offended, you know what I'm saying?

Because I'm like, "Hey, how you not gonna invite your man?"

My team gets a call from somebody from Obama's camp,

um, and they just wanted to thank us for all the work we've done.

And there was a correspondence dinner that happened in New York,

and I'm like, "Yeah, when I see him,

we gonna dap like this and we gonna hug like that."

And, and I remember my security talking to Secret Service

and I just, the whole time they were just shaking their head.

They're saying, "You can't be even here.

Like, you gotta get off the premises."

And I'm like, "Off the premises"?

They did a thorough background check on me.

I took it personal a little bit, I did.

I just was like, "Damn, you know, like...

you know, they don't see me." You know what I'm saying?

He don't see me. You know what I'm saying?

I had to really, like, sit back

and look inward and be like, "Okay, this is my moment

"to accept that because you know my past is my past, I can't change that.

I can just work on my future."

In April 2016,

Obama brought artists to discuss criminal justice reform.

J. Cole, Nicki Minaj, Common, Ludacris,

Wale, Chance the Rapper, Alicia Keys, DJ Khaled,

Timbaland, Busta, Pusha T and Rick Ross.

So inspiring, so motivational.

White House, baby.

You could see the, the pictures on the walls

and, and think like,

they never thought that we would be meeting in here.

They never thought that we would have the,

the power and the voice that we had and,

and the expression that we had

in that room in the White House.

So the talks were really in depth

and we were getting into it.

And, um, this beeping starts to go off.

President Obama was like, "Wait, what? What? What's that?

Wait, what is that?"

And then Rick Ross was like, "Yo, that's my, my ankle monitor," you know.

President Obama said, "Wow, we really keeping it real here."

I don't know if they had that in the White House ever.

A bunch of people went in the White House with Obama.

We don't know what happened. All we saw is pictures.

I ain't seen no list of demands.

This is supposed to be our guy.

Why are we not privy to what going on inside?

That is a question that I asked myself when I saw rappers at the White House.

"What is happening?" And you never really get an answer.

Are we in the inside or are we just being shuffled along?

I know what it's doing for Barack.

I know what it's doing for the presidency.

Can we affect the policy?

There's a lot of people come in that room and do nothing in that room.

How do we affect the change?

Obama kinda has tried to play both sides of the fence.

He's being a politician.

Sometimes he's fighting for us, sometimes he's using us.

One of the most controlled examples really is that Jay-Z and Obama ad.

To me the idea of America is that no matter who you are,

what you look like or where you come from,

you can make it if you try.

Jay-Z did.

He didn't come from power or privilege.

He got ahead because he worked hard,

learned from his mistakes and just plain refused to quit.

It's such a tightly structured, well-thought-through political ad

and it definitely tries to play with

what does hip-hop want and what are we not gonna give it?

He's talking about the American dream.

Anybody can make it in America.

And that's, that's really not our message

when it comes to hip-hop.

Hip-hop got in common with President Obama is that...

he got ice in his veins.

Like, you can tell somewhere down the line he know what's up,

and that's what hip-hop is, knowing what's up.

And my mom called me and she was like,

"Baby, did you hear the president shout you out last night?"

And I said, "Well, you know,

I don't really think he rock with me like that, Mama."

And she's like, "No, he shouted you out."

She sent it to me and I, and I press play.

In my first term, I sang Al Green.

In my second term I'm going with Young Jeezy.

Obama out.

Thank you.

I'm just like, "Oh, wow."

He said, "Michelle likes that when I sing that to her at night."

That there to me was that salute

and head nod from a distance.

Like, "I see you, I appreciate you, but you know what it is."

And that's why I said he got ice in his veins.

Only somebody with ice in their veins

would know to give you a nod from a distance that, "I see you,

I see you," you know.

Obama was hip-hop.

Obama was incredibly hip-hop.

Meeting Obama was crazy.

So soft spoken, such...

such reverence in his presence,

um, without being imposing,

um, just such an amazing human being to meet,

if not for 30 seconds, right?

But it was everything I wanted the moment to be.

I cherish it to this day.

I mean, the handshakes he used to give people,

you know what I'm saying? I'm like, "Yeah!"

Like, like, it was just good to see, like,

to see, like, a Black president and he acting like us.

You know what I'm saying?

I wouldn't be surprised if he had, like, a little book

of Obama rhymes somewhere.

Obama was naturally just a cool motherfucker.

He loves the culture, he respects the art form.

Um, he cares about his music.

In 2020, Obama put me on his summer playlist.

I wrote CROWN when I was 19 years old

and I, I just graduated high school and I did not know

whether or not my dreams would ever come to fruition.

Literally me being like, I'm gonna have to--

I, I love this too much to not pursue it.

That's probably why Obama was listening to it.

I think that's what it is.

He's like, "How can I be president?"

But then he did it. I'm proud of him.

Hi, Obama.

When Barack was in the office

and it was like the second to the last party when,

before he left the White House.

Well, I was like, I'ma play the hardest record I got now

- to see what you... You know. - Right.

And I put on M.O.P.'s Ante Up in the White House and--

No, you did not!

And the floor was like vibrating. People went crazy.

- And I was like, "Oh, God."

And that was just incredible

because he was playing Mobb Deep and, and Mary J. and, like,

and M.O.P. and, like, you know, Black Moon in the White House

and people were really dancing and celebrating.

It was like one of those things where you, you look around

and say, "Do you see what's going on in this place?"

I know it's like always used, but you just

can't help but think like, "Never thought that hip-hop would take it this far."

♪ Ante up ♪

♪ Yap that fool ♪

♪ Ante up ♪

♪ Kidnap that fool ♪

♪ It's the perfect timing, you see the man shining ♪

♪ Get up off them goddamn diamonds ♪

I'm not a political rapper.

Like, my music is not about the politics of the world.

Me and Nipsey, we was in the studio working on a, a project,

we two gang members making it out the city.

You know what I'm saying? From different sides.

We in the studio and the TV on.

This when Donald Trump announced, you know what I'm saying,

he was running for president.

It's like at the beginning of his campaign,

we just started seeing Donald Trump on the TV a lot.

Like, you could tell, like, Obama was a good person,

you know what I'm saying?

How he carried himself, how he talked

and then it go to, like, somebody like Donald Trump

who is just like reckless and talking out the side of his neck,

racist than a motherfucker.

You know, we gotta say something.

Nobody trying to get they shows canceled and be going through--

We already going through that.

So how worse could it be?

Let's do this.

♪ Fuck Donald Trump ♪

♪ Fuck Donald Trump ♪

♪ Yeah, nigga, fuck Donald Trump ♪

♪ Yeah, yeah, fuck Donald Trump ♪

♪ Yeah, fuck Donald Trump ♪

♪ Yeah, fuck Donald Trump ♪

I love them saying it

because sometimes I felt like I was out there by myself.

I respected it, you know what I'm saying?

Because you know, for the,

for the younger hip-hop generation, he took a stance.

You know what I'm saying? He took a real stance.

It was too catchy too. I'm like, "Damn."

It was like just as easy as "Fuck tha Police."

It was timely. It was unexpected.

And I think that's one of the powerful things about hip-hop.

America politicizes Black people

by its public policy towards Black people.

So you don't have to be a political hip-hop artist

to make a political statement.

Somebody got a letter from, like, Secret Service, FBI,

like, the White House and shit.

And, like, me and Nip was all in papers,

like, talking about the song,

me and Nip was getting banned from performances

from college campuses.

It was all type of shit going on.

I'm like, "Yeah, I knew this was gonna happen," and you feel me?

We like, "Fuck it, 'cause it's like we stood up."

I believe Trump heard the song.

He had to hear the song if the White House,

if they sending letters out and shit.

They was probably like, "Hey, hey, hey, Mr. Trump, you gotta hear this."

You gotta realize around that time, it was a get money time

and we liked the fact that Trump was getting money.

We loved that.

I had a song called Donald Trump,

and this is the thing you gotta understand,

he was the person we equated with money.

That's all we ever heard about him being tied to,

you know, billions of dollars.

And when I made my song, you know,

I never made that song from the stance of him being the president,

nor did I ever think he would be the president.

That was because I was relating it to the money, right?

And I think, um, in the beginning everybody was doing that.

The Trump presidency as a whole did not have time to blossom.

I think we were onto something at the very end

and I don't think that there was time enough

to kind of get the thing going.

People say he polarized the country.

I don't believe that.

We got Kanye in the White House saying, "Free Larry Hoover."

That's powerful to me.

You know, they tried to scare me

to not wear this hat, my own friends.

But this hat, it gives me,

it gives me power in a way.

Let me give this guy a hug right here.

- I love this guy right here. Yeah. - That's really...

There are definitely aspects of Trump's personality and actions

that call to the baser nature of hip-hop.

You know, hip-hop is a whole range.

You have, uh, hip-hop that's explicitly misogynistic.

Some people in hip-hop who were used to demeaning women

may have looked at Donald Trump

and the, "Grab them by the pussy," and all that

as a feature, not a bug as they say,

as something to be sought after.

To have that level of impunity, which a Black man will never have.

It is the same line that,

it is, uh, two different artists' interpretation

of the same view.

There's no respect for women from either one of those men.

And, also the fields that they work in

have historically worked against women.

I think we're doing ourselves a disservice if we don't ask why that is.

Um, the root of it all honestly is misogyny and misogynoir.

And there's... the, the Venn diagram

that's happening here is really something to be noted.

You said I ran over to the Trump team

instead of the Biden team.

That's just not true.

- They both contacted me. - Well, but you are working

with the Trump team instead of the Biden team

and people giving you heat for it.

What do you say to them?

Well, I'm willing to work with both teams,

but I'm just working with whoever is willing to work with me.

President Trump is stepping up for a major recording artist.

A$AP Rocky, a rapper from Harlem imprisoned in Sweden.

President Trump has issued his final list of presidential pardons.

Other notable names on the list include rappers,

Lil Wayne and Kodak Black.

I knew Wayne had-had a gun case.

So I seen that and I was like, "Oh, yeah, he politicking.

He politicking, he get a pass."

So growing up, who was the first president of the United States

that you remember being aware of?

Uh, Benjamin Franklin.

Do you remember when N.W.A Fuck tha Police song came out?

Yeah, but that ain't my vibe, though

because I'm-- it's too, it's too blatant.

Like, I'm not that kinda person.

I stand for love, peace, growth, evolving, never change.

Barack Obama...

- Alright, I gotta say this. Yeah.

It's a lot of people, right...

respectfully, that's not Black.

Barack Obama's not from the hood of America.

People want... a Tupac kind of real nigga,

that's like a Donald Trump.

Like he's a real nigga 'cause he's unapologetic.

Black Lives Matter.

I just, I just didn't like the narrative, my boy.

I just didn't like who invested in that movement. Right?

Because what the fuck you talking about?

I'm 'bout-- We do matter.

Why are we saying like-- We know we matter.

Why are we pushing that agenda?

That's dumb.

Bro, it was.

When Trump says, quote,

"Grab them by the..."

that's, that's sexual assault.

- I'm not fucking with that at all.

I have a mother, I have a daughter,

and that shit ain't nowhere near fucking funny.

I don't even think that shit should be in fucking headlines, right?

So that, that ain't nothing I play with.

So if you know me, you know me.

Nigga, I don't play by women at all. At all.

Man, I ain't-- I, I rock with policies.

I rock with him being a better president than the last guy.

That's all it is.

Why I like Trump?

'Cause he's better than Biden.

And who in this fucking room gonna tell me I'm lying?

So why did you decide to come out

and publicly endorse Trump 2024?

That's what people call endor-- Like, endorsing?

I don't know that. I swear to God, bro, on my right hand to--

On my right hand to God, I did not look at that

as being endorsing Trump.

What do you wanna say to, to hip-hop,

to the people about this election in the fall?

Uh...

What I'm gonna say?

Only thing I could possibly tell you is, man,

don't make a last-minute decision.

It's a lot of people afraid to be frowned upon

for living they truth or speaking they truth.

Man... hell, no.

So help you God? - So help me God.

Congratulations Mr. President. - Thank you.

Over the past 50 years, hip-hop has become

as an unstoppable force in America.

It caught the ear of a, a child from Newark, New Jersey.

I think we didn't see more hip-hop in the Biden White House,

um, because of some very apparent reasons.

Two of the great artists of our time

representing the groundbreaking legacy

of hip-hop in America,

- LL J Cool J. Uh...

By the way, that boy's got,

that man's got biceps bigger than my thighs.

I think he's spent...

And an MC Lyte. Both of you, thank you.

One of the most glaring...

...was, uh, Biden talking with the Breakfast Club.

If you have a problem figuring out whether you're for me

or Trump, then you ain't Black.

Biden is old.

He's, he's tired.

That man is exhausted.

We can't expect him to be out here

hanging out with Ice Spice.

It's, it's not, it's not in his contract.

You've been the vice president for a Black president

and I think he just made a lot of assumptions

that he got some automatic juice with that,

that he really didn't get.

Hip-hop has not realized

its full potential and influence with presidential politics.

I'm telling you, they could register more people,

turn out more people to vote,

get more people involved

than any other sector of our society that I can think of.

If they ever use the full force of their influence,

I think it will make a significant difference.

We should be asking for a little bit more

of a return on our investment.

I feel like if people are gonna want to use our voices,

if they're gonna want to hear from us

and want us to be figures that support

or do not support certain things,

we need to get something in return.

What do we want?

I think that's one of the most important things.

What do you want?

That has to be on the table

before they start shuffling you around

and putting you in videos and quoting you

and all of this nonsense.

Because it's just a show at that point in which we are getting played.

Hip-hop was born from rebellion.

If we wanted to find any kind of truth,

find any kind of meaning, purpose in hip-hop

and this election season,

we would need to examine the roots of what hip-hop came from.

N.W.A, Eazy-E, you know what I'm saying?

Ice Cube, Tupac. You know what I'm saying?

We grew up, everything they did

and what they came from and the marks they left.

You feel me?

On a hip-hop culture in the community,

once you realize, like, the situation and position you in,

I start feeling like I got a duty.

You know what I'm saying?

We gonna take on whatever motto,

whatever's motherfucking in front of us, whatever the size.

Like, come on, let's do it. Fuck it, let's go.

They cannot be stopped.

New ideas, new language. You know what I'm saying?

You can get any president, you can line 'em up,

and put 'em in an arena.

Nobody's gonna recite any words he said for 45 minutes straight.

And when you look at people like us,

people know each and every word 'cause that's what we mean to them.

We are the voice of the people.

Hip-hop is the power.