The Very Good Agency

Obama knows his hip hop

I didn’t want to name this article in such a way that I am making an unreasonable assumption, or simply exaggerating a point to make sensational news, so I went with what is self evident from his presidential  campaign… Barack Obama knows his hip hop. There is no need to sensationalise my opinion in this instance, because the way in which I perceive that Barack Obama has utilised hip hop in his election is not only simple and obvious, but transparent as you can see from the way he openly discusses his thoughts in the below video. To this day, I have not heard anyone other then a few of my favourite artists articulate how I feel about hip hops place in the world better then the way that Obama has done in this video.

An extremely important point of debate in the build up to many of America’s recent election campaigns, and especially in this most recent time has been the youth vote. Without turning this piece into an essay, in short, young people traditionally do not vote in large numbers and so it follows that many candidates and parties have tried (with varying degrees of failure) to capture the youth vote that has been going unused.

So if you want to engage an audience of youth, it seems that you would need to have a communication channel that they respect and identify with, and what in America do you think that the emerging dominant voice in this age group might be? hmmmmmmmmm… which is what i’m simply saying… Obama knows his hop hop, and more importantly he understands the power that it has to influence and even mentor an amazing community of youth and adults alike throughout the USA and the world.

Put into context in my situation, having no television over the duration of his campaign, I heard only occasional pieces of information in support of his growing popularity and increasing chances (according to poles on news shows and papers that I would read from time to time).  It was only through Hip Hop that I was exposed to Obama intentionally for more then a brief moment, and not once, but several times in pieces that I was came accross in my every day life as an everyday member of the hip hop community.

This article is admittedly based on my personal opinion, however researching this online I found out there were so many people who share in this opinion, even Dizzee Rascal is feeling it.

For a long time now I have held the opinion that if someone really had a message that they felt should be heard, or a desire to influence their community, the two options were to be a politician or a musician. I am hopeful that this new president will remind the world of the amazing  impact that politics and music can create when in harmony, with the use of hip hop. I’m also hopeful that he establishes subsidies for international artists with a positive message who wish to tour the states, ’cause that’d be awesome please bro.

You an check out more of Obama on:

Television, news, papers, radio, internet, talking to your mates, at the white house.

…bs

Tags: hip hop, Political

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