I'm Political in My Songs, but I Don't Vote

"I don't vote...do what you do. Do good with your people and live your life because what's going on isn't really in our hands," rapper Kendrick Lamar told Truth Is Scary.

Lupe Fiasco, who criticized President Obama's actions during the Gaza Strip bombings, admitted during a CBS interview this year that he does not vote.

Why are current rappers openly blazoning their views in public as well as their songs? When Barack Obama first won the presidency in 2008, the rap industry celebrated the election of America's first African-American president with songs like Young Jeezy's "My President" and "It's A New Day" by will.i.am.

In a Nov. 8 Spin blog, Brandon Soderberg investigated why a wave of political apathy has surfaced in rap. Soderberg confessed in the blog that the only time he had been afraid at a rap show was at the Hopscotch Music Festival in Raleigh, N.C. when the audience cheered and applauded for Killer Mike's delivery of the line:

Ronald Reagan was an actor, not at all a factor / Just an employee of the country's real masters / Just like the Bushes, Clintons, and Obama / Just another talking head telling lies on the teleprompter

One can argue that Kendrick Lamar's music, especially on good kid, m.A.A.d city, contains an underlying sense of community which is good and all, but this is strikingly similar to Mitt Romney's approach to Hurricane Sandy when he said he once helped clean up a trashed football field with some buddies.

"Some things are too big for even a determined group of individuals to fix, and both Lamar and Romney must know that," says Soderberg.

Obama has influenced rappers like Jay-Z to help significantly reduce the misogynistic message portrayed in rap music. At Obama's final campaign rally, Jay-Z altered his hit "99 Problems" and took a stab at Romney. "I've got 99 problems but a Mitt ain't one."

Some thought it was cheesy, and others thought it was uncalled for and offensive to conservatives; that's besides the point though. The point is, he dissolved Mitt Romney with the forcefulness of poetry in lyric form.

Because Obama endorses the careers of rappers like Jay-Z, less prominent and established rappers like Lupe and Kendrick are trying to gain publicity by making controversial statements about the president in interviews and their work.

Though there is no doubt hip-hop helped make its listeners politically conscious when it went through a political phase driven by Public Enemy, those who refuse to vote like Lupe Fiasco and Kendrick Lamar have no right to criticize or even question politics through outspoken, cut-throat statements.