Somehow, Donald Trump bolstered his 2024 campaign with a feature on a rap record. Today, Fivio Foreign and Kodak Black dropped “ONBOA47RD,” a Trump endorsement where Kodak concludes that, “I ain’t even see this many black people freed during the Obama days / Told her she can anything she want, just not my Donald chain,” and where Fivio raps: “I look at the gang and I pledge the allegiance / So we’re all Donald’s secret.”
Is Fivio referring to the secret service? Who knows. From top to bottom, the song is a sum of bad decisions. The title is horrendous, as it’d seem like a desperate clout chase would be spelled in an easy-to-find format. Maybe Fivio thought of the title after a night in “Maimi.” Writer credits for the track include both artists and Trump, along with Billy McFarland, who’s been connecting rappers to the campaign.
The song samples clips of Trump issuing the blandest platitudes he could. In the first, ripped from his 2017 inauguration speech, Trump says, “I will fight for you with every breath in my body and I will never, ever let you down.” And in the second, from his Republican National Convention acceptance speech last month: “I’m not supposed to be here tonight. I’m here today to announce a brand-new plan to deliver more opportunity, more security, more fairness.” Trump goes viral multiple times a week with lies and incendiary statements about marginalized communities, yet they didn’t choose clips that demonstrate why he’s such a divisive figure; besides the reference to his shooting, the crux of these generic comments could be attributable to any politician.
The audio clips dangerously flatten Trump’s political point of view, casting him as a champion of the people, ignoring the undercurrent of fascism coming from his campaign. It feels apropos for the modern mainstream rap sphere that the only political point proposed in the song, by Kodak, is wrong; Obama granted clemency to 1,927 people, while Trump did so for just 237. Since the 20th century, only the Bushes granted fewer people clemency than Trump, who capitalized off splashy pardons to Kodak Black and Lil Wayne, which garnered him an unearned reputation as an advocate for justice.
Unfortunately, those pardons may be why Kay Flock, Sheff G, and Sleepy Hallow, who are all facing cases, have recently endorsed Trump. Even with the latter involved in a state case that Trump can’t pardon them from, they may feel he could do something for them. Fivio has collaborated with all three men. He is likely interested in seeing them home and away from legal peril. Still, he should consider what else could come from a Trump administration. People prone to reading headlines and tweets, but not full reports, often point out that neither side of the American political aisle is different. While that’s true when it comes to their sustenance of imperialism and neither side being willing to institute radical change to uproot systemic inequality, there’s no question that Trump is more motivated to regress the country.
I’ve previously written about the fascism of Project 2025, a platform Trump keeps lying about being complicit in. Even if we choose to believe him, his publically acknowledged platform, Agenda 47, also vies to damage communities in Fivio’s native New York City and Kodak’s native Pompano Beach, Florida. Trump plans to cut federal funding to any school teaching “critical race theory,” push broken windows policies like “stop and frisk” (which don’t address the root cause of crime), and push for the death penalty for drug dealers. Trump also wants to roll back Biden’s climate change policies. The history of environmental racism in America shows that poor communities will be the last to receive the aid they need as climate change causes extreme weather events like hurricanes to become more common.
In 2016, when Trump was asked what year he actually thought America was great, he referenced the “late ’40s and ‘50s,” in the heat of Jim Crow. His policies want to take us back to that white supremacist past while his rich cronies make hand over fist. Maybe Fivio and Kodak wish to be the Black faces of that cohort, at the expense of millions of people who look like them. Hip-hop is one of Black America’s chief vehicles of upward mobility, but it’s created a troubling paradox. Economic ascension has opened the door for entertainers to use our support, and funds, to leave us behind while celebrating politicians looking to make things even harder for us. It took me about 10 minutes to confirm those readily available Agenda 47 facts. These men don’t even have that much time to read about who they’re writing odes to. Or maybe they already know and don’t care.
The three-minute single is the latest annoying intersection of MAGA world and Hip-Hop. 50 Cent was at one point rumored to be a performer at the Republican National Convention. Lil Pump is a devout Trump supporter who mulled recording a Kamala Harris diss track. French Montana took a picture with co-chair of the RNC Lara Trump. Streamer Adin Ross interviewed the Presidential hopeful, who walked out on camera to 50 Cent’s “Many Men.” There’s been a full-on love affair for Trump, who takes after too many rappers as a flashy loudmouth with alarming narcissism, a knack for riling the news cycle, and no sense of nuance. People have framed “ONBOA47RD” as shocking, but it shouldn’t be anymore. Trump’s political presence has elucidated mainstream hip-hop’s decay into a cesspool of violent, ignorant, bigoted patriarchy. But perhaps these embarrassments were inevitable in a capitalistic pursuit.
On Kanye West’s “Off The Grid,” while spitting the verse of his life, Fivio said, “If you got a voice, then you gotta project it / If you got a wrong, then you gotta correct it.” He should take his own advice by pulling a J. Cole move and taking this nonsense off of streaming.