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Multiple songs, albums, bands and performances have referenced Donald Trump or his various brands, including Trump Tower, his TV show, his hotel chain, and his casinos.[1] While recent songs refer to Trump's campaign, election, and tenure as President of the United States, more than 200 songs refer to Trump prior to his campaigns for president.[2] Most earlier references to Trump in lyrics revolve around his status as a business tycoon, but then shifted toward a stance more critical of his politics as he attempted to attain public office. With his victory in the 2016 presidential election, Trump's prominence in hip-hop music has been likened to that of Ronald Reagan's in hardcore punk during the 1980s.[3]
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Trump's name first appeared in hip hop lyrics during the 1980s when he became an icon of the ultra rich. Among the earliest mentions of Trump in rap lyrics was the Beastie Boys' track "Johnny Ryall" on the 1989 album Paul's Boutique, in which they contrast Trump with his homeless alter-ego, Donald Tramp.[2]
While many rappers early to this trend praised Trump's wealth, often as a means to compare their own financial aspirations or success to his, others used their music as a platform to criticize Trump's practices and politics.[4] Among the earliest of these was The Coup from Oakland, California, who critiqued and mocked Trump on their first two albums released in the early 1990s.[1]
ESPN's political site FiveThirtyEight documented that between 1989 and 2014, 19% of song lyrics about Trump were negative while 60% were positive. The 2010s marked a left-leaning political shift in musicians' attitude toward Trump as his presence in the public eye changed from that of a business tycoon to a politician, particularly one known for making controversial statements. Because of hip hop's close association with minority communities and its reinvigorated politicization with the Black Lives Matter movement, lyrical depictions of Trump rapidly grew to be more disparaging throughout his campaign and subsequent election as President of the United States.[1]
Many artists have name-checked Trump in more than one song. Pre-presidency, Rick Ross had the most Trump mentions (nine songs between 2008 and 2015) with Nas running second (seven songs between 1996 and 2012). Other major Trump name-checkers include Migos (six songs between 2013 and 2016), Young Thug (six songs between 2013 and 2015), Lil Wayne (five songs between 2000 and 2012) and Raekwon (five songs between 1995 and 2012).[1]
When Mac Miller's 2011 song "Donald Trump" became a Billboard hit, Trump released a YouTube video congratulating the rapper:
A lot of people are calling me about the Mac Miller rap song. Now, it's named "Donald Trump." Maybe you should pay me a lot of money, but it just did over 20 million people, tuning into Mac Miller. So in one way, I'm proud of him. I haven't actually seen the language... Probably, it's not the cleanest language you've ever heard... But the "Donald Trump" song just hit over 20 million, that's not so bad. I'm very proud of him.[5]
As the song garnered more plays, Trump took a more aggressive tone and demanded royalties for using his name, thereby starting a feud with Miller.[6] In early 2013, Trump taunted and threatened legal action against the rapper via a series of exchanges on Twitter. By 2015, Trump changed his attitude toward Miller again when he ended an interview with The Hill by praising Miller's song as it approached 100 million hits.[7] Miller later appeared on The Nightly Show with Larry Wilmore to denounce Trump for his racial views during his run for president in 2016.[8]
In 2004, Trump endorsed Eminem in a mock presidential national convention to promote satellite radio station Shade 45.[9] On October 10, 2017, Eminem performed a freestyle rap titled "The Storm" at the 2017 BET Hip Hop Awards, criticizing President Trump.[10] The freestyle went viral, garnering millions of views and hundreds of thousands of likes on YouTube within weeks.[11] Eminem's Revival has many lines critiquing Trump's presidential campaign and election, calling him a racist, a Nazi, and Adolf Hitler—among other incendiary insults[12] and a fantasy in which the rapper is "framed" for murdering Ivanka Trump.[13][14] He also raps about his regret at having collaborated with Trump in his promotion for Shade 45.[9][12] On "The Ringer" from his 2018 album Kamikaze, Eminem apologizes for alienating fans who supported Trump, and says that he was questioned by the U.S. Secret Service for his seemingly threatening lyrics.[15] This led BuzzFeed to file a Freedom of Information Act request with the Secret Service to find out if the claim was true. In October 2019, the agency revealed that, in response to an email from a TMZ employee pressing the agency to investigate Eminem for his "threatening lyrics" about Ivanka Trump, they had conducted a background check and arranged an interview, in which the interviewers read the verse out loud to Eminem—and he rapped along. The agency subsequently decided against referring the case to a federal prosecutor.[16]
Outside of hip hop, most lyrical references to Trump have appeared in songs ranging from satires of the billionaire, to outright protest in varying degrees of explicitness. One of the earliest Trump send-ups was the 1990 ballad "Donald Trump (Black Version)" written by Prince for fellow Minneapolis act the Time in which singer Morris Day calls himself a Black version of Donald Trump, who can use his riches to "fulfill [a woman's] every wish, [and her] every dream".[17] In 1992, Irish folk-rock group Goats Don't Shave had a #4 hit with "Las Vegas in the Hills of Donegal," which references Trump's casino business in imagining an Irish county that becomes a gambling mecca.[18]
More recently, songs like "Fergus Laing" by English folk singer Richard Thompson present thinly veiled references to Trump without mentioning him by name, while songs like "Fucked Up Donald" by Canadian punk band D.O.A. are more direct. Many songs attack Trump by mocking his supporters through stereotypical portrayals of their views and lifestyles. Phoenix-based comedian Brian Nissen comedian stars as "Mullets Over America" spokesman Dwain in the music video "Make America Great Again", while Rocky Mountain Mike's cover of "Mr. Tambourine Man" remakes the lyrics to be about Trump, with the song's title alluding to the color of his skin. Sung from the perspective of a xenophobic Trump supporter, the song opens:
Hey Mr. Tangerine Man, build a wall for me
I'm not that bright and don't know that you're not going to Hey Mr. Tangerine Man, keep Muslims away from me
With my jingoistic worldview, I'll come following you.[19]
In October 2016, author Dave Eggers launched a project slated to release one anti-Trump song each day leading up to 2016's election day. Originally called 30 Songs, 30 Days, Eggers' plan was to have each song performed by a different artist, but due to more musicians coming through with songs, it grew to be 40, and then 50 songs in 30 days.[20][21] Eggers worked on the project with Jordan Kurland with whom he had previously worked on two similar election-related projects.[22][23][24] Eggers' inspiration for the project came when attending a Trump rally in Sacramento earlier that year.[25] Participating artists included Death Cab for Cutie, Aimee Mann, Bhi Bhiman, Jim James, Franz Ferdinand, Josh Ritter, Thao Nguyen, EL VY, R.E.M., Adia Victoria, Moby, Lila Downs, Mac McCaughan, Tim Bluhm, Vinnie Paz, Jesu, Sun Kil Moon, Filthy Friends, Radioinactive, Sheila Brody, Ani DiFranco, Andrew Bird, Mirah, clipping., Sam Cohen, Blake Hazard, Wesley Stace, Loudon Wainwright III, Cold War Kids, Reggie Watts, Mission of Burma, Bob Mould, Ryan Miller, The Long Winters, Open Mike Eagle, Jimmy Eat World, Kyle Craft, Local Natives, Anthony D'Amato, Greg Holden, Laura Gibson, Tim Heidecker, Modern Baseball, Joe Purdy, and Rogue Wave.[26]
In June 2017, Compound Sound LLC released Trumped Music, a 32-minute album of eight songs which are fair use parodies of famous hit songs throughout the years. These songs are sung by impressionist Christopher John as "Donald Trump", with several tracks also featuring impressionist Andrew Harris as "Vladimir Putin".[27]
Paul McCartney's song "Despite Repeated Warnings" from his 2018 solo album Egypt Station compares then-president Trump's failure to acknowledge climate change to the sinking of the Titanic where the captain ignored warnings of icebergs. In his song McCartney cites Trump's references to global warming as a "Chinese hoax," his pulling the United States out of the Paris Climate Accords, and otherwise denying the existence of climate change altogether.[citation needed]
In 2023 Sparks bassist Martin Gordon treated the transcript of Trump's phone call to Georgia secretary of State Brad Raffensperger as input for a 31-song collection entitled 'Another Words', and in April 2024 delivered a paper at the University of Art, Zurich, Switzerland (Hochschule der Kunste) on using inherent rhythmic structures found in Trump's extemporised speeches as the basis for a basis for developing asymmetric heterometric temporal structures in music composition.
At the 2017 Lowlands Festival in the Netherlands, the American coloratura soprano Sara Hershkowitz performed György Ligeti's 1992 concert excerpts from his opera Le Grand Macabre, titled Mysteries of the Macabre, with the Noord Nederlands Orkest. She alluded to Donald Trump in three costumes which she changed on stage: a clown, baby outfit with a bottle, and a beauty pageant swimsuit, the last a reference to his previous ownership of the Miss Universe organisation.[28][29]
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