Barack Obama, Hip-Hop Candidate
Barack Obama is the first hip-hop presidential candidate.
The American Prospect
by Latoya Peterson
Like hip-hop, Obama rose from long-shot hopeful to fierce contender. But it is more than just his political style that is rooted within hip-hop culture. Forget the money-cash-hoes bacchanal showing in an endless loop on MTV and BET. Ignore the thousand and one variations on “Superman” floating around YouTube. Hip-hop culture is a unifying force, a potent combination of entrepreneurship, community activism, creativity, and innovation that appeals to youth across the globe. Barack Obama is the hip-hop candidate, not because of his racial identity or his oratory skills, but because his policies and approach to politics demonstrate that he understands the needs and desires of the hip-hop community.
In the late 1980s Chuck D famously identified hip-hop as “the black CNN.” Back then, hip-hop was all about language and wordplay, and the best rappers carried around a rhyming dictionary in preparation for the inevitable freestyle battle.
