I am a journalist, but I am also an opera singing and generally politically uninformed arts critic hailing from Hollywood-obsessed, traffic-infested Los Angeles. It has taken a whole lot of shazam to spark my interest in political issues of the past, but the 2008 presidential election somehow held my attention. Given the sheer facts—an African American candidate with a Muslim-sounding middle name running for president and some great tunes to boot—I wanted to be a piece of the puzzle known as “change.”
Barack Hussein Obama. It is a name that both sparked the involvement of an otherwise dormant youth vote and simultaneously angered an adamant older generation of conservative voters. While my Floridian grandparents refused to accept Obama as a legitimate candidate, my friend, a UCLA alum, wanted only one thing for her twenty-second birthday—a trendy “Vote Obama” t-shirt, which she now wears with pride. Indeed, Obama became a marketable brand to college students. But more than the overpriced clothing, the Obama campaign infected young minds through free musical entertainment.
The soundtrack of Obama’s entire campaign played worldwide and stemmed from one Internet site—a little open-source community known as YouTube. From a twenty-something female with Obama’s name spelled across her tush confessing her “crush on Obama” in a music video, to a caboodle of alleged A-list actors/singers/musicians singing “Yes We Can,” while an Obama speech plays in the background, music was an essential role in riling up young voters, including myself. Instead of slanderous commercials and obnoxious prime time interviews, Obama’s campaign succeeded in subtly manipulating me enough to get off my ass and vote.
It was like listening to that same song playing repetitively on every station and then overhearing it being hummed by every stranger that passed by. I wanted to ignore it, but somehow, it got into my head. It made me think and become more involved, until suddenly I was humming it myself—“Yes, we can!”
- Danielle Jacoby
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