Obama’s reference to Jay-Z is not surprising. The hip-hop mogul whose net worth is estimated at approximately half a billion dollars had been supporting him since the early days of his first presidential campaign. Obama included Nas most likely because of his 2008 “Black President” track. Obama’s reference to Lil Wayne is more perplexing, especially given the subject matter of the vast majority of his rhymes. I wonder which Young Weezy tracks Obama had in his iPod and if he would be willing to share this with the public.
Since the Fisk Jubilee Singers performed for President Ulysses S. Grant in 1872 or soprano Marie Selika Williams sang for President Rutherford B. Hayes in 1878, numerous African American entertainers have showed off their skills in the White House. Obama has set himself apart from his post-Carter predecessors by welcoming hip-hop in the Oval Office. More than a few emcees—Doug E. Fresh, Jay-Z, Queen Latifah, Common, Big Sean, Wale, and Kendrick Lamar—visited and/or spit rhymes in the White House during Obama’s presidency.
In May 2011, Obama was criticized by various Republicans, conservative political pundits, and police authorities for inviting Common to perform at the White House for Michelle Obama’s “White House Music Series.” Common’s critics were offended by his anti-Bush, anti-police brutality, and pro-Assata Shakur lyrics. A veteran New Jersey State Trooper deemed the black activist who Common celebrated in his 2000 tribute, “A Song for Assata,” “a domestic terrorist” who “executed” a New Jersey State Trooper on May 2, 1973.
In “A Song for Assata” from his commercially successful first solo album Like Water for Chocolate, Common played the role of an amateur historian; he evoked the story-telling tradition of hip-hop’s early years in detailing the struggle of Assata from about 1973 until her escape to Cuba in 1979. Informed by Shakur’s autobiography and interviews that he conducted with her in Havana, Cuba, Common stressed the relationship between her activism and the present state of black America. “I read this sister’s story, knew that she deserved a verse / I wonder what would happen if that would’ve been me? / All this shit so we could be free, so dig it, y’all,” Common rhymed.67 This approach of imagining what life was like for previous generations of African Americans is something that Obama espoused when lecturing to young blacks.
Public intellectual Mark Anthony Neal has convincingly lambasted Common for his sexism and “hyper-masculine” worldview. Yet, the Chicago-born emcee did produce one of the most elaborate and widely played tributes to a black leader in the history of hip-hop.68 Unlike his male predecessors who at best have perhaps given “props” to Harriet Tubman, Common also venerated a black female leader.
Obama and his administration must have been aware of Common’s politicized rap. By inviting him to the White House, Obama was, in a sense, validating Common’s appreciation of Black Power era history and his commemoration of a prototypical black radical who was added to the FBI’s “New Most Wanted Terrorist” list at the beginning of Obama’s second term.
Dressed in “all black everything” (rocking ripped jeans, a tight long-sleeve shirt, and an unostentatious gold chain with a cross pendant) and sporting Allen Iversonesque cornrows, 2015 Grammy award-winning emcee and future Pulitzer Prize winner Kendrick Lamar visited Obama in the White House in January 2016. Prior to this visit that received widespread attention on social media, Obama told People magazine that his preferred song of 2015 was “How Much a Dollar Cost” from Lamar’s highly acclaimed To Pimp a Butterfly album. He added that he favored the Compton emcee over Drake. The differences between these two commercially successful emcees are numerous and clear, especially when one considers the content of their rhymes and freestyling abilities. Though he spits about struggle (“Started From the Bottom”), Drake does not rhyme about black history. Lamar, on the other hand, has creatively rapped about black history since his imaginative track “HiiiPower” (2011).
Inviting Lamar to the White House did not evoke the same response as Common’s visit to the Oval Office did. Though he can be considered a “conscious” rapper (however problematic this label is), Lamar is also a black entertainer who has enjoyed white mainstream success. In choosing Lamar over Drake, it is not unreasonable to deduce that Obama approves of the more introspective, complex, and soul-searching rhymes. With “How Much a Dollar Cost,” Lamar pleads guilty to turning his back on the poor, to abandoning the “Golden Rule” and Jesus’s dedication to giving to the unfortunate.
During his first term, very few emcees—namely Dead Prez, Killer Mike, Lupe Fiasco, and Lowkey—openly condemned Obama for his racial neutrality and, in their minds, imperialistic foreign policy. Most emcees and members of the hip-hop community and expansive generation embraced Obama in part because he validated them, in some instances side-by-side with revered civil rights elders who shaped history profoundly. Hip-hoppers view Obama’s presidency as epoch-making. As was the case with his philosophy of black history, Obama’s outlook on hip-hop vacillated throughout his political career. As hip-hop studies scholars Erik Nielson and Travis L. Gosa noted in a 2015 Washington Post editorial, after Obama was elected, his relationship with hip-hop artists and activists began to deteriorate and hip-hop heads “took notice.”69 Rather than remembering Obama as “The Hip-Hop President,” it would be more accurate to describe him as being a cautious consumer of and prudent apologist for hip-hop music and culture.
Whether speaking to or interacting with the millennial hip-hop generation, black and white audiences from various age groups, the mainstream media, or his fellow politicians, Obama made conscious decisions about how to portray African American history. Obama, who left the White House in January 2017, no longer needs to practice the hyper social awareness that he did during his presidency. He can now speak more plainly about a range of issues, including African American history. I would not be surprised if the Obamas’ forthcoming Netflix series produces films and documentaries on dimensions of black history. As touched upon in the next chapter on Black History Month, his handling of this annual observance reflects his calculated stance toward the black past.
Honoring “The Gift of Black Folk”
The Contested Meaning of Black History Month
“Who made America?” queried W. E. B. Du Bois in the preface to The Gift of Black Folk: The Negroes in the Making of America, first published in 1924. “Now that its foundations are laid, deep but bare, there are those as always who would forget the humble builders, toiling wan mornings and blazing noons, and picture America as the last reasoned blossom of mighty ancestors.” He continued:
America is America even because it shows, as never before, the power of the common, ordinary, unlovely man … We who know may not forget but must forever spread the splendid truth that out of the most lowly and persecuted of men, Man made America.1
With great pride, the prolific editor of The Crisis was referring to the black “Man” and everyday African Americans as the “humble builders” who, in essence, contributed in monumental ways to America’s economic growth, democracy, and culture. Like scores of self-taught black historians who preceded him, Du Bois spotlighted and memorialized how generations of African Americans “made America.” For him, this story, the chronicle of African Americans’ contributions, needed to be publicized in the name of “truth.” Several years after The Gift of Black Folk was published, historian Carter G. Woodson created Negro History Week. The “high priest of Negro history” echoed Du Bois’s search for the “truth” in describing the underlying objective of this celebration. Others felt the need to tell this story too. “Let truth destroy the dividing prejudices of nationality and teach universal