politics
Page: 8
Village People founder Victor Willis is once again tackling two issues surrounding the disco band’s 1970s smash hit “Y.M.C.A.”: Donald Trump’s use of the track in his 2024 presidential campaign and the characterization of the song as a “gay anthem.”
In a lengthy Facebook post on Monday (Dec. 2), the 73-year-old singer-songwriter doubled down on why he chose to let the president-elect play “Y.M.C.A.” at rallies and events leading up to his win in November, with Willis saying he “didn’t have the heart” to block the usage — despite originally asking Trump to stop in 2020 — upon realizing that the politician seemed to “genuinely like” and was “having a lot of fun” with “Y.M.C.A.” Plus, as Willis noted, the dance tune has only “benefited greatly” in terms of chart placements and sales since the twice-impeached former POTUS incorporated it into his campaign.
“Therefore, I’m glad I allowed the President Elect’s continued use of Y.M.C.A.” the musician wrote. “And I thank him for choosing to use my song.”
Willis also pointed out that Trump had, according to him, obtained the necessary license from BMI to play the song. The artist previously noted that the billionaire was legally allowed to use “Y.M.C.A.” in an October press release, in which Willis also stated that — despite supporting Democratic opponent Kamala Harris in the 2024 election — he would not go through any channels to bar Trump from using the track as it would’ve been “stupid and just plain hateful” to do so.
Controversy surrounding Trump’s unauthorized use of artists’ music is nothing new, with Village People — prior to Willis’ change of heart — being just one of many acts since the polarizing president elect’s first White House bid in 2016 to ask that he stop playing their songs at campaign events without direct approval. This year alone, Beyoncé, Celine Dion, the Foo Fighters, Jack White and several others issued statements slamming Trump for doing so, while Isaac Hayes’ estate went as far as filing a lawsuit against the politician in August for using the late soul singer’s “Hold On, I’m Coming” at multiple rallies.
However, as Willis noted in his post, it can pay to be on Trump’s playlists. In November, “Y.M.C.A.” ascended to the top of Billboard‘s Top Dance/Electronic Digital Song Sales chart more than four decades after its release, spending two weeks at No. 1. And according to the Village People star, the song “is estimated to gross several million dollars since the President Elect’s continued use of the song.”
As for another debacle that has “reached a fever pitch” amid Trump’s continued use of “Y.M.C.A.,” according to Willis, the singer wrote that any branding of the track as a “gay anthem” is “completely misguided” and “damaging to the song.” He also threatened legal action against “each and every news organization that falsely refers” to it as such starting in January 2025, although he personally doesn’t mind if “gays think of the song as their anthem.”
“This assumption is also based on the fact that the YMCA was apparently being used as some sort of gay hangout, and since one of the writers [Jacques Morali] was gay and some of the Village People are gay, the song must be a message to gay people,” Willis wrote. “To that I say, once again, get your minds out of the gutter. It is not … such notion is based solely on the song’s lyrics alluding to [illicit] activity for which it does not.”
“Y.M.C.A.” has indeed been widely adopted by the LGBTQ community over the years, with many interpreting the lyrics as references to the gym chain’s reputation as a popular cruising site back in the day — plus, the track comes from a 1978 album titled Cruisin’. Even so, Willis’ latest post is not the first time he’s sought to distance the track from the gay anthem label, writing in a 2020 Facebook post: “No one group can claim Y.M.C.A. as somehow belonging to them or somehow their anthem. I won’t allow my iconic song to be placed in a box like that.”
Clearly, Willis hasn’t budged on his stance in the four years since. “The true anthem is Y.M.C.A.’s appeal to people of all strips including President Elect Trump,” he concluded in his Monday post. “But the song is not really a gay anthem other than certain people falsely suggesting that it is.”
HipHopWired Featured Video
CLOSE
JD Vance, the newly-minted Vice President-elect, has proven his loyalty to incoming President-elect Donald Trump after the running mates faced a spirited campaign from Vice President Kamala Harris and Gov. Tim Walz. Now basking in the glow of their win, JD Vance shared an odd Thanksgiving photo that has some bringing up the “weird” angle once more.
Vice President-elect JD Vance shared the image of a repurposed Norman Rockwell’s 1943 Thanksgiving painting “Freedom From Want” which features President-elect Donald Trump’s face over the husband in the drawing, while Vance takes the place of the wife. Instead of holding a dish of food, Vance’s wife figure is holding a map of the United States depicting the states and districts won by the Trump-Vance team.
The move was especially baffling for some considering the pushing of American family values that Trump and company promote often, and even if it were a joke, some observers online believe it landed on deaf ears. Many of the comments on X, which is where Vance shared the photo, found it cringeworthy and even said it validated the weird claims.
Vance himself hasn’t explained why he shared the photo but the point he was attempting to make was clear. However, using the painting as a victory lap is leaving a sour taste in the mouths of some.
Below, we’ve got reactions from X, formerly Twitter, to JD Vance sharing the Thanksgiving photo.
—
Photo: Getty
HipHopWired Featured Video
CLOSE
Hunter Biden, the second eldest child of President Joe Biden, was pardoned by his father over the weekend in a move taken as an affront to the legal process by right-leaning observers. Earlier this year, Hunter Biden pled guilty in connection to a federal tax matter with President Biden issuing the pardon after previously stating he would not do so.
Hunter Biden, 54, was the target of false allegations concerning claims that Biden — when he was vice president — took a bribe to suggest that Ukraine fire prosecutor general Viktor Shokin to halt an investigation into Ukrainian gas company Burisma and to protect his son from charges since he worked on the company’s board.
Facing federal tax and gun charges, Biden admitted to lying on a federal form to obtain a firearm in 2018 as a drug user and was found guilty on three felony charges over the summer. The conviction made Bident the first child of a sitting United States president to be convicted in a criminal trial. Biden, who had his license to practice law suspended due to the conviction, was due to be sentenced on December 12 which no longer will happen after getting pardoned on Sunday (December 1).
Biden was a favorite target of Donald Trump and MAGA extremists during the 2020 presidential election cycle, harping heavily on the Ukraine matter despite little evidence supporting the claim. However, conservative pundits continued to seize on Biden’s legal issues and many are seemingly enraged that President Biden issued the pardon. President Biden stated the reason for the pardon was to counter the political motivations of his critics.
On X, formerly Twitter, MAGA Nation is attempting to turn the pardon of Hunter Biden around on President Joe Biden despite him leaving the office in January. We’ve gathered some responses and shared them in the list below.
—
Photo: Getty
Senator Peter Welch (D-Vt.) introduced the Transparency and Responsibility for Artificial Intelligence Networks (TRAIN) Act on Monday in the latest effort to shield songwriters, musicians and other creators from the unauthorized use of their works in training generative AI models.
If successful, the legislation would grant copyright holders access to training records, enabling them to verify if their creations were used — a process similar to methods combating internet piracy.
Trending on Billboard
“This is simple: if your work is used to train A.I., there should be a way for you, the copyright holder, to determine that it’s been used by a training model, and you should get compensated if it was,” said Welch. “We need to give America’s musicians, artists, and creators a tool to find out when A.I. companies are using their work to train models without artists’ permission.”
Creative industry leaders have long voiced concerns about the opaque practices of AI companies regarding the use of copyrighted materials. Many of these startups and firms do not disclose their training methods, leaving creators unable to determine whether their works have been incorporated into AI systems. The TRAIN Act directly addresses this so-called “black box” problem, aiming to introduce transparency and accountability into the AI training process.
Welch’s bill is just the latest development in the battle between rights holders and generative AI. In May, Sony Music released a statement warning more than 700 AI companies not to scrape the company’s copyrighted data, while Warner Music released a similar statement in July. That same month in the U.S. Senate, an anti-AI deepfakes bill dubbed the No FAKES Act was introduced by a bipartisan group of senators. In October, thousands of musicians, composers, international organizations and labels — including all three majors — signed a statement opposing AI companies and developers using their work without a license for training generative AI systems.
During a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing earlier this month, U.S. Copyright Director Shira Perlmutter emphasized the importance of transparency to protect copyrighted materials, saying that without insight into how AI systems are trained, creators are left in the dark about potential misuse of their work, undermining their rights and earnings.
Sen. Welch has been active in promoting consumer protections and safety around emerging technologies, including AI. His previous initiatives include the AI CONSENT Act, which mandates that online platforms obtain informed consent from users before utilizing their data for AI training, and the Digital Platform Commission Act, which proposes the establishment of a federal regulatory agency for digital platforms.
The TRAIN Act left the station with immediate widespread support from creative organizations, including the RIAA, ASCAP, BMI, SESAC, SoundExchange and the American Federation of Musicians, among others.
Several music industry leaders praised the TRAIN Act for its potential to balance innovation with an eye on respecting creators’ rights. Mitch Glazier, RIAA chairman & CEO, highlighted its role in ensuring creators can pursue legal recourse when their works are used without permission. Todd Dupler, the Recording Academy’s chief advocacy and public policy officer, and Mike O’Neill, the CEO of BMI, echoed these sentiments, stressing the bill’s importance in preventing misuse and enabling creators to hold AI companies accountable.
David Israelite, president & CEO of the National Music Publishers’ Association, pointed to the TRAIN Act as a vital measure to close regulatory gaps and ensure transparency in AI practices, while John Josephson, chairman and CEO of SESAC Music Group, praised its dual approach of promoting responsible innovation while protecting creators.
Additional endorsements came from SoundExchange CEO Michael Huppe, who stressed the need for creators to understand how their works are being utilized in AI systems, Elizabeth Matthews, CEO of ASCAP, who stressed the need for artists to be fairly compensated, and Ashley Irwin, president of the Society of Composers & Lyricists, who emphasized the bill’s role in safeguarding the rights of composers and songwriters.
Select Music Industry Reactions to the TRAIN Act:
Mitch Glazier, RIAA: “Senator Welch’s carefully calibrated bill will bring much needed transparency to AI, ensuring artists and rightsholders have fair access to the courts when their work is copied for training without authorization or consent. RIAA applauds Senator Welch’s leadership and urges the Senate to enact this important, narrow measure into law.”
David Israelite, NMPA: “We greatly appreciate Senator Welch’s leadership on addressing the complete lack of regulation and transparency surrounding songwriters’ and other creators’ works being used to train generative AI models. The TRAIN Act proposes an administrative subpoena process that enables rightsholders to hold AI companies accountable. The process necessitates precise record-keeping standards from AI developers and gives rightsholders the ability to see whether their copyrighted works have been used without authorization. We strongly support the bill which prioritizes creators who continue to be exploited by unjust AI practices.”
Elizabeth Matthews, ASCAP: “The future of America’s vibrant creative economy depends upon laws that protect the rights of human creators. By requiring transparency about when and how copyrighted works are used to train generative AI models, the TRAIN Act paves the way for creators to be fairly compensated for the use of their work. On behalf of ASCAP’s more than one million songwriters, composer and music publisher members, we applaud Senator Welch for his leadership.”
Mike O’Neill, BMI: “Some AI companies are using creators’ copyrighted works without their permission or compensation to ‘train’ their systems, but there is currently no way for creators to confirm that use or require companies to disclose it. The TRAIN Act will provide a legal avenue for music creators to compel these companies to disclose those actions, which will be a step in the right direction towards greater transparency and accountability. BMI thanks Senator Welch for introducing this important legislation.”
John Josephson, SESAC: “SESAC applauds the TRAIN Act, which clears an efficient path to court for songwriters whose work is used by AI developers without authorization or consent. Senator Welch’s narrow approach will promote responsible innovation and AI while protecting the creative community from unlawful scraping and infringement of their work.”
Michael Huppe, SoundExchange: ”As artificial intelligence companies continue to train their generative AI models on copyrighted works, it is imperative that music creators and copyright owners have the ability to know where and how their works are being used. The Transparency and Responsibility for Artificial Intelligence Networks (TRAIN) Act would provide creators with an important and necessary tool as they fight to ensure their works are not exploited without the proper consent, credit, or compensation.”
Todd Dupler, The Recording Academy: “The TRAIN Act would empower creators with an important tool to ensure transparency and prevent the misuse of their copyrighted works. The Recording Academy® applauds Sen. Welch for his leadership and commitment to protecting human creators and creativity.”
HipHopWired Featured Video
CLOSE
Matt Gaetz, the former Florida congressman who resigned on Wednesday (November 13), found himself getting loads of attention after President-Elect Donald Trump named him as his Attorney General pick. The resulting fallout from Matt Gaetz being selected for the role has led to details of a House Ethics Committee probe against the AG hopeful, with a new report highlighting a woman saying that she and the congressman had sex when she was still in high school.
ABC News reports that the unnamed woman testified in front of the House Ethics Committee over the summer as part of the long-running investigation of sex trafficking allegations swirling around Matt Gaetz. The committee’s report was slated to be released but a meeting with members to discuss those terms was canceled on Friday (November 15) amid calls for the report’s release. However, House Speaker Mike Johnson does not want the report’s findings to be released.
The woman shared during her testimony that she and Gaetz, 42, entered a sexual relationship when she was just 17 at the time. Gaetz has since responded to the allegations and framed them as false.
“These allegations are invented and would constitute false testimony to Congress,” Gaetz said to the outlet regarding its report. “This false smear following a three-year criminal investigation should be viewed with great skepticism.”
As noted in the report from ABC News, Justice Department officials launched the probe into Gaetz three years ago which included claims of obstruction of justice but no charges would emerge from their findings.
Back in September of this year, Gaetz issued a response to a series of questions sent to him by the House Ethics Committee regarding the allegations, which wanted to examine the claims of sexual misconduct and drug use claims that were publicly made.
“Your correspondence of September 4 asks whether I have engaged in sexual activity with any individual under 18. The answer to this question is unequivocally NO. You can apply this response to every version of this question, in every forum,” Gaetz shared via social media.
Public skepticism has remained high as Trump has selected several officials and named them as potential appointees for several high-ranking positions in his cabinet. As a result, there has been chatter about Matt Gaetz cropping up on social media, and we’ve got some of those responses below.
—
Photo: Getty
There’s nothing in this world Cardi B likes more than checks, but that doesn’t mean she took any money from the Kamala Harris campaign to attend a rally in Milwaukee.
On Thursday (Nov. 14), the politically outspoken rapper cleared up any misconceptions on the matter with a tweet aimed at conservative commentator Candace Owens, who’d written on X, “Hey @iamcardib — Working on a story and was wondering if you were in any way paid to speak at the Kamala campaign event you spoke at.”
Cardi quickly replied with, “I didn’t get paid a dollar and that’s on my three!!”
“I actually came out of pocket for glam and travel because it’s somewhere I wanted to be..,” the “WAP” artist continued. “Like please girl you know damn well I’ll argue you down about politics FOR FREE.”
The interaction comes a week after Donald Trump won the 2024 presidential election, beating out the Democratic Harris-Walz ticket. Cardi — as well as numerous other A-list musicians — had staunchly supported the VP’s White House bid, with the Whipshots founder even speaking at a Nov. 1 campaign event in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, to help drum up some last-minute support.
“Like Kamala Harris, I’ve been the underdog, underestimated, and had my success belittled,” she said at the time. “Women have to work 10 times harder and still face questions about how we achieved success. I can’t stand a bully, but just like Kamala, I always stand up to one.”
When Harris’ campaign efforts proved unsuccessful, Cardi shared an emotional letter to the politician. “This may not mean much but I am so proud of you!” the hip-hop titan wrote, addressing the former prosecutor directly. “No one has ever made me change my mind and you did! I never thought I would see the day that a woman of color would be running for the President of the United States, but you have shown me, shown my daughters and women across the country that anything is possible.”
Cardi also issued a warning to Trump’s supporters post-election. “So you know, Trumpettes, y’all won, I know y’all happy,” she said in a video posted to X Nov. 6. “Ain’t nobody acting like they’re the losers. However, y’all need to leave me the f–k alone. Because I got one more f–king cigarette in me before I start lighting your asses up. Aight?”
The “Up” artist’s history with Owens goes back years before their latest X exchange, with the latter first calling the former “illiterate” and suggesting that Black Americans should be “insulted” by Biden’s partnership with Cardi in 2020. The two women have sparred multiple times in the years since, but unexpectedly found a fleeting piece of common ground in 2023 when Owens backed up Cardi’s assertion that Brian Szasz — the stepson of a billionaire who died in the Titanic submersible implosion that year — was merely looking for “clout.”
“We all know this day would come,” Owens tweeted at the time. “Finally, I agree with [Cardi B] and everything she said about the submarine stepson from hell.”
See Cardi’s tweet to Owens below.
I didn’t get paid a dollar and that’s on my three!! I actually came out of pocket for glam and travel because it’s somewhere I wanted to be.. Like please girl you know damn well I’ll argue you down about politics FOR FREE https://t.co/SxJWWDSqFP— Cardi B (@iamcardib) November 14, 2024
This time, everything really is going to be different. Americans now live in a country where neither felony convictions nor dancing to “YMCA” onstage during a medical break in a political rally are disqualifying factors for the presidency; where a member of Congress who was investigated by the House Ethics Committee for allegations of sexual misconduct is nominated for attorney general; and where proposals for reckless tariffs and magic-bean-money marketed by grifters have made the stock market go up. Oy.
The music business has been humiliated. All those artist endorsements for Kamala Harris didn’t seem to matter, at least in part because most of them spoke to voters the way the Democrats did. (I found Bruce Springsteen’s ad for Harris moving, but I’m not sure it was all that convincing.) Taylor Swift, who endorsed Harris, is the dominant artist of this era. But Joe Rogan, who seems to be an idiot’s idea of an intellectual in the way that writer Fran Lebowitz once said that Trump is a poor person’s idea of a rich person, may have more influence. With just over 50% of the popular vote, Trump is now mainstream, at least statistically. Pop culture has changed.
What about the music business? Amid all of this winning, the industry may stay basically the same, according to a half-dozen conversations with industry policy executives and a dozen more with other music business figures. The basics of Trump’s economic agenda are tariffs, tax cuts and deregulation. Tariffs on imports will play havoc with some businesses, but they would only affect parts of the music industry; the price of merchandise, including CDs and vinyl, could go up, probably modestly. When it comes to taxes, successful artists and executives could end up paying much less, which seems inadvisable for the country but fine for business.
The industry’s biggest regulatory issue is copyright, power over which the Constitution specifically grants to Congress. (Even the U.S. Copyright Office operates as part of the Library of Congress, in the legislative branch of government.) It’s one of the few genuinely bipartisan issues that unites Democrats who champion the arts and Republicans who want to protect property rights, and the sheer complexity of the subject — as well as the fact that it’s always easier to stop legislation than it is to pass it — makes it hard to imagine significant change happening quickly.
The music business faces other issues, of course. Chief among them is the Justice Department’s antitrust case against Live Nation Entertainment, which seeks to break up the concert and ticketing giant. It’s impossible to know what’s going to happen with the case, although speculation suggests that it’s too popular a cause to simply drop. (Many concertgoers feel certain that breaking up the company will bring down ticket prices, which is hard to imagine; there are other important issues at play, but they’re more complicated.) There’s also the fate of TikTok, the Chinese-owned short-form-video platform that Trump tried to ban when he was president, then promised to “save.” (One of the hard things about figuring out what Trump will do is that he himself doesn’t seem entirely clear, either.) Right now, the issue is in the courts. And although TikTok’s Chinese parent company has said it does not intend to sell the platform, one could imagine a compromise that allows everyone to save face, probably without addressing the original problem.
These last two issues show just how much conflicts over media business regulation — and business regulation in general — now take place within parties as opposed to between them. Partly, this is because Republicans have been just as willing to regulate technology companies as President Barack Obama. When it comes to antitrust, for example, both traditional Republicans and corporate-leaning Democrats want to get rid of Federal Trade Commission (FTC) chair Lina Khan, who has taken an aggressive approach to antitrust enforcement, but JD Vance has said positive things about the job she’s doing.
Antitrust isn’t the only issue that works that way. President Biden, and most traditional Democrats, understand the need to protect small investors from cryptocurrency rip-offs. (Trump was against crypto before he was for it.) Until a decade ago, how and how much the government should regulate business was the main divide between the parties. Now a libertarian, business-friendly agenda is pushed by parts of both parties, available in Silicon Valley fleece and Wall Street cashmere.
This, more than Trump, represents the real policy risk for the music business — the libertarian side of Silicon Valley, which stands to gain from Vance’s influence over Trump. (There are other issues that are much more important, of course, including economic policy and the independence of the Federal Reserve.) Imagine that Trump and Vance want to Make Silicon Valley Great Again, which in their minds means having the U.S. take the lead in artificial intelligence. Could that mean allowing technology companies to train their software on copyrighted works without licenses? Or relaxing some of the other protections that rightsholders have? Given all the laws and treaties involved, this is actually hard to imagine. Then again, what about this situation isn’t?
HipHopWired Featured Video
Source: SOPA Images / Getty
It’s no secret to anyone who is regularly on social media and is not from the land of MAGA Delulu that Elon Musk has not only eroded the value of X, the platform formerly known as Twitter, but he has turned it into a utopia of racial slurs, right-wing propaganda and shameless Trump-humping. Well, one media outlet is not about to pretend Musk hasn’t turned X into a MAGA fan page and it will no longer post on the platform because of it.
The Guardian is having none of Musk and his X-Klan (see what I did there?) shenanigans.
From Variety:
The Guardian made the announcement on Wednesday in a post on its website, writing that “the benefits of being on the platform formerly called Twitter” have now been “outweighed by the negatives.” The publication cited the “often disturbing content” found on the platform and said the way it handled last week’s U.S. presidential election — which saw Donald Trump win a second term — “crystallized” its decision.
“This is something we have been considering for a while given the often disturbing content promoted or found on the platform, including far-right conspiracy theories and racism,” the publication said. “The U.S. presidential election campaign served only to underline what we have considered for a long time: that X is a toxic media platform and that its owner, Elon Musk, has been able to use its influence to shape political discourse.”
Musk, of course, responded to the news on X by basically describing Trump but applying the definition to The Guardian, tweeting, “They are a laboriously vile propaganda machine.”
That’s rich coming from the guy who supports the guy who has been fact-checked and found to be lying more than any modern president — the same president who spent four years spreading factless and thoroughly debunked election fraud propaganda until he kicked and screamed his way back into the White House.
Shout out to The Guardian for refusing to normalize Musk, Trump and the rest of the white nationalist propagandists who are, indeed, relying on lies and bigotry to “shape political discourse.” That’s what integrity actually looks like, not that any of the aforementioned would know anything about that.
Pharrell Williams is clarifying a misinterpreted quote he gave to The Hollywood Reporter about celebrity endorsements, which led some to believe he was dissing Taylor Swift over voicing her support for Vice President Kamala Harris in the 2024 presidential election.
Explore
See latest videos, charts and news
See latest videos, charts and news
In a new cover story with GQ, Williams explained, “They pit you against each other. I love Taylor. She knows that.”
Noting that he didn’t even mention her in the interview, the “Happy” singer added, “I bought a 1989 Taylor t-shirt online last year, and I was walking around here with it tucked into my jeans. I love her. I love people, bro. That was some right-wing troll s—. But I heard something the other day that made the most sense in the world: Right-wing, left-wing, all the same bird.”
Swift was one of many musicians gave Harris their seal of approval this past election, with Ariana Grande, Billie Eilish, Cardi B, Megan Thee Stallion and more speaking out in support of the Democratic ticket before Donald Trump ultimately won the presidency earlier this month.
In a post shared with her 238 million followers, Swift expressed her admiration for Harris, calling her a “steady-handed, gifted leader” and a “warrior” for causes she holds dear, such as LGBTQ+ rights and women’s reproductive freedoms.
Shortly after her endorsement, the Hollywood Reporter interview with Williams was published in which he said he doesn’t “do politics” and gets “annoyed sometimes” by celebrity endorsements. “There are celebrities that I respect that have an opinion, but not all of them. I’m one of them people [who says], ‘What the heck? Shut up. Nobody asked you,’” he said at the time. “When people get out there and get self-righteous and they roll up their sleeves and s—, and they are out there walking around with a placard: ‘Shut up!’ So, no, I would rather stay out of the way, and obviously, I’m going to vote how I’m going to vote. I care about my people and I care about the country, but I feel there’s a lot of work that needs to be done, and I’m really about the action.”
A week after Donald Trump won the 2024 U.S. Presidential election, The Blessed Madonna has Tuesday (Nov. 12) published an essay on her newly launchedSubstack in response.
The Kentucky-born, London-based producer (real name: Marea Stamper) writes that she is “yoked to the brink of collapse with contempt for millions of my fellow Americans, myself included possibly. When Project 2025 spelled out the plan to cement power in the hands of white, straight men, while kneecapping every inch of progress made in our country over the last fifty years, I believed them, just as I believed Trump in 2016. I believe they intend to do what they have promised. But still, I feel like someone kicked the air out of me.”
The Blessed Madonna, who released her debut album Godspeed in October, is one of the few politically vocal electronic artists in the scene and is one of a handful of producers to publicly comment on the election results, with Massive Attack and Moby also sharing their thoughts following the Nov. 5 election. Read her complete statement below.
At night, I flip through my phone and try to make a timeline, something that will put this in a linear form that I can understand.
417 weeks ago, I was boarding a plane and a bunch guys in camo and MAGA gear got on. I posted a picture and I tagged United Airlines and said, these men are wearing clothing associated with a hate group and I feel uncomfortable. I was absolutely serious. But the comments poured in calling me judgemental, overreactive, snide, unhelpful. “You don’t know these guys at all! Terrible form. You would go nuts if someone did that to you.” As if that MAGA hat isn’t the stand in for a white hood. As if we did not see those men scaling the wall of the Capitol four years later.
It doesn’t matter how many pictures I look at or timestamps I check though. It’s all a knot of repeating scenarios. I tell my mother it will be ok. I tell myself it will be ok. Someone does something that makes me lose faith in humanity. Someone does something that restores it, for a while. It all just swings back and forth, ticking like a metronome which does not tell time, but keeps it in a holding pattern.
This week the metronome’s pendulum has swung mostly to shame. I indulged in the kind of optimism that no mother who has ever had to give her black or brown son “the talk” about police brutality will ever have the luxury to enjoy. I am yoked to the brink of collapse with contempt for millions of my fellow Americans, myself included possibly. When Project 2025 spelled out the plan to cement power in the hands of white, straight men, while kneecapping every inch of progress made in our country over the last fifty years, I believed them, just as I believed Trump in 2016. I believe they intend to do what they have promised. But still, I feel like someone kicked the air out of me. Women have cast their vote for men who would let them bleed to death in a hospital parking lot from a miscarriage, should they need an abortion?
I am so angry, I feel as if I drank poison and am waiting for the other guys to die.
This is who we are. This is America.
Don’t say it’s not.
We have done this now not twice, but millions of times in millions of ways. We have have done it at the border. We have done it in for-profit prisons and for nothing executions. We have done it in forever wars and proxy wars and culture wars. We have sold our schools and public hospitals off for parts and left human beings in the wreckage.
And We The People have chosen as a country to buy what that vile man is selling, the real American dream: white supremacy. And he will sell it to you whether you can redeem or not. And he has sold it to you, though in the end, it will redeem no one and nothing. And so tonight, what I lack in optimism, is replaced with rage, which itself I believe can be a kind of love. It is not a gentle or comforting kind of love, but the love that lives behind bared teeth and says: motherf—ker, one of us is about to die trying.