I know it seems like I’m posting all over the place about Obama on this site, but seriously – what’s the last election you can think of that had people making rap songs about, you know, politics?

And really, if you compare this to anything being played in clubs right now, this actually is not a bad song. I mean, the lyrics (especially the first verse) are borderline hilarious, but come on, compare that to, say, Laffy Taffy. The more I watch this, actually, the more I am convinced that there is some element of genius in this production.

This might be giving away a bit of my own bias, but this was apparently put together by students at UCR (my alma mater), and filmed in Lot 30. I actually believe that this may be one of UCR’s prouder moments (up there next to when they accidentally burned down the Lothian cafeteria – that was a long night). Somebody should start a petition to get this posted to the front page of UCR’s front page.

I actually find this phenomenon pretty interesting. I mean, I’m going through the songs I have set up for the next few shows (this is taking a while, as I had a pretty brutal hard drive crash and lost a lot of material), and the amount of Obama mentions – even off-handed ones – is pretty impressive. If I wasn’t out here, I’d probably invest more time in actually looking harder at this (hint hint, some enterprising young researcher should do a project on this).

Also interesting is the fact that if you look on youtube, there are dozens of songs done about Obama – plenty of talented Black kids doing these, but it doesn’t seem to be limited to race here. On the McCain side, however, I can’t seem to find anything worth even linking to (most of the songs about him, actually, are “diss” tracks). Am I missing something? Are there some white kids in Arizona twanging out McCain country jams that I am missing?

Or, perhaps, is it that the true element dividing Obama/whateverthatguysnameis “fans” and McCain/Palin “fans” is not race or class or gender, but deeper and more important things, like talent, hipness, and aesthetic sensibilities?

Politics aside, if we are talking strictly in terms of cool and lame, the choice is clear. Not that I am advocating voting with the same region of your brain that tells you whether or not you should pick the Dunks or the Ones, but, you know.

I’m just saying though.

It’s an interesting phenomenon.