In his quest to still be the Democratic candidate for president this year, Joe Biden’s got at least one friend — Carole King. “Joe Biden is wise and experienced and he loves his country more than his ego,” the singer-songwriter and activist tells RS. “Joe is running to beat a wannabe dictator so he can continue to help people of good will achieve their aspirations. I’m with Joe. The only poll that matters is the ballot. If every eligible person of good will votes for Joe in November, we’ll win.”
But at least right now, King is one of the few musicians who has publicly backed Biden in the past and has voiced her or his support after his train-wreck debate with Donald Trump last month.
Although he’s a proud boomer who grew up with rock & roll, Biden has never had the music cred associated with previous Democratic presidents Barack Obama, Bill Clinton, and Jimmy Carter. But Biden has still bonded with that world from time to time. His 2021 inauguration included performances by King, James Taylor, Fall Out Boy, Black Pumas, Lady Gaga, Japanese Breakfast, Jennifer Lopez, and Garth Brooks, among others. Last December, Lenny Kravitz, who backed him during the 2020 election, performed at a Biden fundraiser in Los Angeles.
Dating back at least to the 2020 election, when she sent out emails asking for contributions to his campaign, King has been an avid Biden advocate. But in the weeks since the debate — and the ensuing debate over Biden’s viability as a candidate — the music world has largely fallen silent. Virtually none of those artists, or any on the similarly progressive end of things, have issued any pro-Biden statements or made references to his campaign on their social media accounts. Some artists contacted by RS — including Taylor, Kravitz, Fall Out Boy, and Black Pumas — were unavailable or didn’t respond to requests for comment.
Is it a sign of withering support — or that musicians don’t feel comfortable weighing in at this fraught juncture? “I’ve had a couple of calls like, ‘Where are the musicians?’” says artist manager and activist Danny Goldberg, whose book Bloody Crossroads 2020: Art, Entertainment, and Resistance to Trump chronicled that campaign. “But it’s not usually the role of artists to get involved with an internal conversation like this within a party. I don’t know if you’re going to see Bruce Springsteen or Taylor Swift write an op-ed like George Clooney did. That was an anomaly, and a Hollywood thing. And I don’t see any evidence that Joe Biden has any interest in what rappers or rock guitar players think.”
One omen may have arrived earlier this year, when Cardi B told RS she felt “layers and layers of disappointment” over Biden. “I feel like people got betrayed,” she said, adding, about both Biden and Trump, “I don’t fuck with both of y’all n—-s.” (After some blowback, she later tweeted, “I will never turn republican lol.”)
But others are optimistic that once the fall campaigns kick in, with or without Biden on the ticket, musicians will again rise to the political occasion. “It’s a weird, unique moment,” Goldberg says. “There’s no reason to have expected a lot of musicians to be in the media the last few weeks. But going into the election, it is reasonable to expect them to weigh in in terms of voter registration and turnout. And I’m sure that will happen.”