With less than two weeks to go before the U.S. presidential election, tensions are rising. But at least Barack Obama was having fun. The former president no longer has to campaign for himself, and he’s the political equivalent of a cool character actor vying for best supporting actor. Earlier this month, he echoed comments from an audience member who yelled that Donald Trump was wearing diapers. (“I almost said that, but I decided I shouldn’t.”) In September, he noted Trump’s “weird obsession with crowd size,” emphasizing the statement with a hand gesture that suggested he thought it might be relevant. Slightly related.
Now he’s into rapping. At a Democratic rally in Detroit last night, the city’s most famous son, Eminem, introduced Obama to the stage. “I go to a lot of rallies, so I’m not usually nervous, but I feel like I’m kind of following Eminem,” Obama said. He then began rapping the intro to Eminem’s “Lose Yourself.” I said rap— it’s a little bit like rap and a little bit like preaching, following the tradition of the African-American church in which he spent some of the formative years of his political career.
When he “had vomited on his sweater,” he was almost shouting; when “outwardly he seemed calm and ready,” he was swinging his knees to an imaginary beat and performing with his outstretched right hand. Dash to emphasize this. , giggling and looking a little shy despite the approval of the cheering crowd. He left the podium, then stepped back and briefly imitated the song’s guitar riff: “dun dun dun dun dun dun dun dun dun…”. Then he joked about the whole thing. “I thought Eminem would perform—I would jump out,” he said. “Love me some Eminem.”
It was an outlandish political stunt designed to make headlines. Whether he succeeds may depend almost entirely on what you think of Barack Obama. But it does fit with the dominant vibe he has created since he left office: cool dad. As we said in August, when Obama released his biennial cultural picks (the basis of his Cool Dad branding campaign), it essentially meant cool, but not also Cool. It’s kind of clever, but also kind of cheesy, that a former president can do a half-decent rap. This is relevant. Will Harris win the election? Probably not, but it injects an interesting Democratic-flavored energy into the discourse — something that’s certainly valuable, at least on a comedic basis, given Trump’s apparent running away from this race.
The fact that this is Eminem rap makes sense too. Part of the reason is because it’s the kind of rap that middle-aged men are most likely to know. If Obama, 63, is on his journey toward semi-cool dadhood in one direction — escaping the rigidity of the presidency and having a little fun in retirement — Eminem, 52, is on his journey in the opposite direction. this road.
Early in his career, the abundance of slurs and bigotry in his lyrics made him politically toxic. Now that he’s older – and so are his audiences – he’s naturally less edgy and more receptive, despite his best efforts to continue to shock. In fact, he became more or less like every other famous middle-aged musician—Bruce Springsteen among them—campaigning for the Democratic Party. Obama and Eminem’s unforgettable meeting on stage showed just what it takes to be a cool dad.
This story originally appeared in British GQ magazine.
