A catchy song with meaningful lyrics might strike some presidential candidates as the perfect song to drive their campaigns, feel-good anthems and underdog tales. But as much as a candidate may believe a piece of music aligns with their politics or persona, musicians frequently respond with outrage.
Stern letters are sent by lawyers demanding that the cord is abruptly yanked from the speakers, and when it’s not a public scolding soon ensues.
In the latest bust-up, Eminem lashed out at Republican Vivek Ramaswamy’s use of his hit song Lose Yourself.
Here the newspaper outlet looks back at all the showdowns between popstars and politicians, from Dr. Dre and Marjorie Taylor Green to Adele and Donald Trump.
The real Slim Shady told 2024 Republican presidential hopeful Vivek Ramaswamy to stand down and quit rapping to his tunes on the campaign trail.
According to a newspaper outlet, Eminem reached out to the music licence BMI and asked that the Ramaswamy campaign’s licence to use his music be withdrawn.
Ramaswarmy had performed Eminem’s Lose Yourself 11 days before the letter was sent, at the Iowa State Fair, entertaining an early morning crowd assembled to hear him speak alongside Iowa’s Republican Gov. Kim Reynolds.
In a letter dated August 23, a BMI representative got in contact with Vivek’s campaign lawyer about the publisher’s music licence for political entities agreement.
It said the label had received communications from Marshall B. Mathers III, aka Eminem, objecting to the Vivek Ramaswamy campaign’s use of Eminem’s musical compositions (the ‘Eminem Works’).
The correspondence goes on to say that the letter serves as notice that the Eminem Works are excluded from the agreement effective immediately.
It said that BMI would consider any performance of the Eminem Works by the Vivek 2024 campaign from that date forward to be a material breach of the agreement for which BMI reserves all rights and remedies with respect thereto.
Ramaswamy had performed libertarian-themed raps under the stage name ‘Da Vek’ during his undergraduate years at Harvard University and has been a longtime fan of Eminem.
Ramaswamy said that he didn’t grow up in the circumstances that Eminem did. Ramaswarmy’s Indian immigrant parents were an engineer and a physician, but he continued that the idea of being an underdog, people having low expectations of you, that part spoke to him.
It didn’t prevent Eminem from allowing sleepy Joe Biden to use his music when running for president. Perhaps he liked Biden more than Ramaswamy.
It’s not like Ramaswamy’s selling the song. However, he does need permission to use it. And let’s face it, he’s using the music to achieve notoriety for his campaign, and Eminem has every right to say no!
Mind you, Eminem’s sell-by date is well and truly over. Perhaps he should be thankful that anyone wants to play his music. It was awesome back in the day, but now other legends have taken over. But Eminem has rights. He’s not attempting to silence anyone. He’s just asking for it not to be used and for Ramaswamy not to use his music to promote himself.
It’s sort of amusing that the world’s greatest musicians have to keep telling Republicans to stop using their music, and it seems that they can’t find any popular musicians who agree with their politics. Perhaps it’s time they rethought their politics.
Mind you, do excessively rich musicians know what’s actually good for the common people?
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