Musicians against Trump
Trump’s already controversial presidency has been vehemently opposed by many from its inception. Most recently the Muslim ban has stirred a backlash from musicians across the globe.
As the world reacts to Trump’s Muslim ban, amidst huge protests held across the globe, condemnation from the music industry has been rife.
Nicki Minaj, Bette Midler, and DJ Khaled are three of the many musicians to take to twitter to oppose Trump’s most controversial executive order so far, while Four Tet has added songs from the affected countries to his playlist (found on Spotify) in solidarity with the people suffering as a result of the order. Carried out in the interests of National Security, the order prevents citizens of seven countries of Muslim majority (Syria, Iran, Sudan, Libya, Somalia, Yemen, and Iraq) from entering the USA for 90 days. In addition, it has halted refugee processing for 120 days (permanently from Syria) and has more than halved the cap from 110,000 to 50,000 total refugees that will be accepted in 2017. Intended to reduce terrorist activity in the US, it has widely been hailed as cruel and illogical.
The new president is no stranger to opposition from the music industry. Both his campaign and neonatal presidency have been dogged with criticisms from media personalities and famous musicians. This began with a host of artists requesting that Donald Trump desisted from using their music at his rallies. Known for using classic rock at his campaign events, artists such as The Rolling Stones, Twisted Sister, Steven Tyler, and R.E.M drafted letters to his campaign office requesting that he no longer play their music. Aerosmith’s lawyers were keen to negate “the false impression that [Steven Tyler] is connected with or endorses Mr. Trump’s presidential bid”. True to form, Trump’s campaign continued to use mostly unauthorised music at their events whilst ignoring repeated requests to stop from copyright holders and artists alike.
This trend continued through to his inauguration, with singers from Céline Dion to Elton John refusing to sing. Perhaps this was partly out of fear of the backlash from fans, as Andrea Bocelli reported receiving after initially accepting the gig. Jennifer Holliday, a Broadway singer, felt compelled to write a letter apologising to the LGBTQ community for her performance at a pre-inauguration concert for Trump. She later retweeted a piece from The Boston Globe, describing the nominees for his cabinet as a “who’s who of homophobia”.
Trump still has some friends in music, however. Cultural icons such as Kanye West, Kid Rock, and Ted Nugent all came out in his support during the campaign. With Kanye famously saying “If I would have voted, I would have voted for Trump”.
