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  • » Name: Amanda Bassa
  • » Location: VA
  • » Member Since: 09/21/07
  • » Bio: student, future change maker, and everything you wouldn't expect me to be.
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The Undisputed Truth

Obama is Hip Hop!


February 21, 2008 | Tags: obama, sampling

Shouts to all the people who pay attention to politics that read this joint. I know you’re out there. Those that don’t? Well, this country needs your help right now very badly, so perhaps this is a great time for you to get involved. For the sake of the greater good and all. Anyway, I know I’ve been yapping a lot about politics lately, and I’m not sorry for that at all, but this time I’ll make sure to keep it hip hop related. I promise.

The latest hype in the election talk has been the whole “Obama plagiarized!” thing. Been living in a hole? Need a re-up? Here’s the rundown from the New York Times. OK, so he lifted a few words from this guy Deval Patrick. But you see, Patrick and Obama are cool with one another. They’re friends, homeboys, buddies - whatever you want to call it. They’ve backed eachother up in various endeavors and even run similar campaigns. Obviously they know how to contact eachother. If this guy Deval was going to be pissed about this thing, I’m sure he would have taken it up with Barack personally. No need for the Clinton camp to throw in their two cents in a desperate attempt at a last-minute foiling of Obama’s success. But, as the soulful and melanin-possessing half of the 2dopeboyz would say, I digress.

Obama was slick. He bit the phrase in question and used it in a spoken speech – a better move perhaps than putting it into written word in a book. Does this sound familiar to anybody yet? Putting it in a speech is much easier. There’s a quicker delivery time to the public, you probably don’t have to pay to hear the speech (especially when it’s broadcast on damn near every news/politics station in the country), and it gives people a nice preview of how you’ll carry yourself if/when you win the election.

Presidential campaign speeches are like mixtapes.

And what is a predominant reason for pushing out mixtapes rather than a legitimate album? The difficulties of getting samples cleared. You see, I’m going to propose that Obama didn’t really plagiarize, per se. The better way to phrase this is that Obama merely sampled Deval’s speech in his own. And when you phrase it like that, then Clinton’s response would be pretty much exactly what Obama was looking for.

[In my best Hillary Clinton voice] “Did you hear that? Did you catch that sample? Damn, I remember the first time I heard that joint, shit was hot. I can’t believe he used that!”

And shit, we know this guy Deval Patrick isn’t really giving a fuck that Obama sampled his lines. He was probably behind the scenes executive producing the speech. He’ll get some free liquor and VIP entrance to the release party for the album (the celebration if/when Obama wins the election) and he’ll be chillin. And he knows it. You never know, maybe he’ll have a nice career as a speech-ghostwriter as well. This guy’s career just got a boost. Who is he to complain?

I guess Obama is a smart guy after all. He took the essential foundation of rap, the art of sampling, and put it into a whole new arena to throw a curveball at the competition. And just as the concept of sampling in rap has been seen as blasphemous at times – laden with legal issues and old fart-disapproval, Obama’s sampling of the classic Deval Patrick track “Just Words” has been met with the same attitude from those uppity, so not hip hop, panties-in-a-bunch crowd who wouldn’t know the hood if it bit them in their tabletop-flat asses.

Stay up Barack, and remember fam, all press is good press. But can we get an Earth Wind & Fire sample next time? That’d set the streets on fire.

 

 

 

*Special shouts to everybody that's been helping me out in the past few very hectic days, especially Shake and Jake (hahaha, you love how I played that, huh Shake?), and my man Modi from DC to BC (have you been listening?). Everyone that's been working with me behind the scenes...it's all love, and without you I couldn't have had the week that I just had. Thank you very much. Also congratulations are in order to my man Ryan who just launched an indie hip hop website this week called Rhymehouse. I dropped a feature on Immortal Technique over there, in case anybody is interested. And also props to the wonderful duo of DX's own Donwill and his other Ilwil half, Ilyas, who just dropped the gem of a freebie, Beat Thieves 2. More from Donwill to come in a future post.


The views and opinions expressed in this blog are those of the writer and not necessarily those of HipHopDX.com or Cheri Media Group.

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