Rappers YG and Nipsey Hussle are riding a wave of critical acclaim for their recently released anti-Trump duet. If the song’s title — “F**k Donald Trump” — is offensive, the lyrics are incendiary. In the span of less than three and a half minutes, the song contains at least nine threats of physical violence against Trump, with two of those being unveiled death threats.
One can easily imagine the response if a white country-western duo had released a song in 2008 calling for the assassination of then-presidential candidate Barack Obama. The chance that the song would have received praise from Billboard and other music entertainment media is exactly zero. Yet in a double standard that has become so normal as to be expected, pop culture media has positively championed “F**k Donald Trump.”
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The lyrics include such gems as:
I like white folks, but I don’t like you
All the ni**as in the hood wanna fight you
Surprised El Chapo ain’t tried to snipe you
Surprised the Nation of Islam ain’t tried to find you
Have a rally out in L.A., we gon’ f**k it up
Home of the Rodney King riot, we don’t give a f**k
Black students, ejected from your rally, what?
I’m ready to go right now, your racist a** did too much
I’m ’bout to turn Black Panther
Don’t let Donald Trump win, that ni**a cancer
He too rich, he ain’t got the answers
He can’t make decisions for this country, he gon’ crash us
No, we can’t be a slave for him
He got me appreciatin’ Obama way more
And:
Ni**a am I trippin’? Let me know
I thought all that Donald Trump bulls**t was a joke
Know what they say when rich ni**as go broke….
Look, Reagan sold coke, Obama sold hope
Donald Trump spent his trust fund money on the vote
I’m from a place where you prolly can’t go
Speakin’ for some people that you prolly ain’t know
It’s pressure built up and it’s prolly gon’ blow
And if we say go then they’re prolly gon’ go
You vote Trump then you’re prolly on dope
And if you like me then you prolly ain’t know
And if you been to jail you can prolly still vote
We let this ni**a win, we gon’ prolly feel broke
You built walls? We gon’ prolly dig holes
And if your a** do win, you gon’ prolly get smoked
F**k ni**a, f**k you!
WARNING! VIDEO CONTAINS GRAPHIC CONTENT! SEE IT HERE.
It’s a perfect blend of hatred, violence, lawlessness, and poor grammar. It combines death threats (“you gon’ prolly get smoked”), threats of riots (“Have a rally out in L.A., we gon’ f**k it up — Home of the Rodney King riot, we don’t give a f**k”), threats of voter fraud (“And if you been to jail you can prolly still vote”), and — for a video celebrated for its inclusiveness, an unhealthy dose of class warfare (“He too rich, he ain’t got the answers”). Considering all of that together, this song should receive condemnation from all corners.
But that’s not the case. The song’s video’s success has been limited to the Internet, since if it were played on the air, the edits would reduce it to an instrumental. The video has gone viral, however, thanks to the positive exposure it has received from the media.
Billboard called the song an “anti-Donald Trump anthem” and said that even though police shut down the video shoot for the song due to fears of a riot, “Cops can’t keep YG and Nipsey Hussle down,” adding that the video was able to be released using the footage that was shot before the police tried to “keep YG and Nipsey Hussle down.”
MTV — apparently reading from the same playbook — described the song as “a de facto anti-Trump rally” and praised “YG, a Blood, and Nispey Hussle, a Crip” for “uniting … genders, ages, races and sets [read: gangs] … for a singular cause.” As if calling for the murder of a presidential candidate is a “cause” worth celebrating.
The Source — with no attempt at originality but adding a heaping dose of spin — said that the rappers “were joined by hundreds of bystanders, turning the shoot into somewhat of an impromptu anti-Trump rally.” Having watched the video more times than I would have preferred (read: more than zero times), I seriously doubt there were any “bystanders” or that anything about this video shoot was “impromptu.” While I am not accusing anyone in the video of having the requisite skills of a professional actor, it is clear this was a planned event. In fact, the video shoot was coordinated via social media to draw a crowd. The Source ended its endorsement of the song by calling it both “quite the anthem” and “a well-timed message.”
Vibe reported on police shutting down the unauthorized video shoot, during which cars and people blocked the road and participants vandalized property. Rather than addressing the professional way in which the officers handled the situation, Vibe portrayed the whole thing as if the police were quelling a peaceful demonstration. The article is peppered with expressions such as, “crashed the set” and “rolled in with weapons” to describe the actions of the officers. The article concludes by quoting Instagram user, mosaicc, as posting:
First they pulled out tasers, then pistols, then SHOTGUNS. Not sure any of that was necessary, but my ni**a @nipseyhussle executed like a professional. Hands up. We was all in a peaceful F**K DONALD TRUMP mood. No rioting, no fighting, we were together. I guess expressing political views with togetherness requires police to pull out shotguns.
There’s a real disconnect required to refer to calling for the murder of a public figure as simply “expressing political views.” But then again, the intro to the video says, “Our opinion is that in the age of a technologically empowered and nuclear armed planet … SEPARATION is the enemy.” With an intro like that to a song like this, perhaps this writer is asking too much to expect anything that resembles logic.
There’s also a divergence from reality, more subtle, for those who are paying attention: Without a doubt, most all of the people involved in making and spreading this video lean toward the left/Democratic end of the political spectrum, yet as Kurt Williamsen — author of the article entitled “Do Progressive Policies Hurt Black Americans?” — states bluntly at the end of his piece, “If one wanted to destroy black Americans economically, socially, and even physically, one could do no better than to think and act ‘progressively.'”
It’s not just the pop media that is wrapping its arms around the song, either. During last weekend’s Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival, YG offered a solo performance of the song to 20,000 fans chanting “F**k Donald Trump!” The festival — which has been an annual event since 2001 and is hosted at the prestigious Empire Polo Club in Indio, California — is a music industry force to be reckoned with. In 2015, there were almost 200,000 tickets sold, and the event grossed more than $84 million. Apparently, Coachella’s organizers consider a song advocating violence and calling for the murder of Trump to be acceptable.
Both the video and the lyrics are disturbing. The video is replete with participants giving the middle finger to the camera and throwing up gang signs. Small children are seen holding signs saying, “F**k Trump!” Even in light of the death threats against Trump, perhaps the most disturbing element of the video is a scene that demonstrates the twisted thinking that calls the dark recesses of these rappers’ minds home. While the line, “If we let this ni**a win, God bless the kids” is being delivered, a small girl — maybe five years old — is shown holding a sign saying, “Women should be in trouble for abortions?????? F**k Donald Trump!”
God bless the kids, indeed. Being subjected at such an early age to a culture of death, violence, and lawlessness, they will need the blessings of the Almighty. Because while the pop-culture media celebrates the dysfunction of that culture for both monetary and political gain, those kids are being raised in it.
