Many things have been said about GOP presidential frontrunner Donald Trump with much of it being unflattering when it comes to his views on women, minorities and people coming from bloodlines and beliefs that are not historically established as a part of America’s Mayflower worthy ruling class. In fact, in many cases it would seem that Trump actively courts and encourages very specific, highly xenophobic segments of society to be aggressively exclusionist when it comes to America’s time honored tradition of referring to itself positively as a great melting pot when it comes to important questions of race, class, power and creed.
As Hip Hop comes from a tradition of thriving artistically from a point outside of any cookie cutter ideals for society that work consciously or unconsciously to cast down one group in favor of another, it is frankly surprising if not a little disheartening when a musician, who calls him or herself a part of the universal soul that is Hip Hop, endorses a man that many major newspapers have called a demagogue. But this is America, and no matter what anyone thinks about it, for the time being, all of us can endorse whomever we want. So, in these cases, maybe the love is real, maybe it’s just a show to be contrary (which Hip Hop rebels do well), or maybe it’s just for the twitter hits, publicity and imagined future tax breaks, but these are the latest in a short list of Hip Hop Artists who are not ashamed to love The Donald:
1.Foxy Brown, aka Inga DeCarlo Fung Marchand. The often reclusive Ms. Brown, who took some time off from the rap game due to an illness that briefly impaired her hearing, is now back in the studio, and has intimated that her new album could be a tribute to Donald Trump. In her own words to the New York Daily News: ” I know so many people won’t agree with me and will try to change my mind, but I’m a smart girl. I’m excited… I haven’t been this excited in a long time, ” gushed the former Ill Na Na, continuing,” I know people say he’s a racist, but that’s just crazy.” Apparently it didn’t take that long to change her mind. In the aftermath of the steep and deep twitter blowback she received from the Hip Hop community and others for her statements, Brown quickly doubled back on instagram with the all caps entreaty, ” I AM IN NO WAY ENDORSING TRUMP!!!” However, on the business of whether Foxy believes Trump is or is not racist, the details are still fuzzy.
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Chingy, aka Howard Bailey, Jr., Mr. “Right Thurr” and “Holidae In” rapper from St. Louis, Missouri tweeted the following with regards to Donald Trump on January 22nd: “People should innerstand that politics is a business jus like the job you work at. I vote for @realDonaldTrump ‘YEP’ 3” After receiving a landslide of criticism, Chingy quickly retracted his endorsement later on that same day, saying that his original tweet had been “taken out of context,” with the twitter rejoinder, ” I’m trending though. Lmao #LifeOfACeleb #TwitterIsTheDevil #NoEndorsement.”
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Azealia Banks, who has always been outspoken when it comes to African American civil rights, along with the need for over $100 trillion to be paid by the U.S. government to African Americans as reparations for slavery, had this somewhat passive aggressive endorsement of Donald Trump: “I think Donald Trump is evil like America is evil and in order for America to keep up with itself it needs him.” To her credit, Banks, aka Miss Bank$ is the only one who has not succumbed to pressure to retract her statements post community backlash. However it is important to note that her incendiary statements did go public on Feb 1, exactly one week before Banks’ record “The Big Big Beat,” was set to drop. As such, whether Ms. Banks’ words were savvy coincidence or just the serendipitous remarks of a true believer we can never really know.