Campaign officials for presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy tell CityBeat the Cincinnati native will stop performing Eminem songs during campaign stops after the rapper told the Republican to back off.
The 38-year-old “anti-woke” tech entrepreneur who wants to dismantle the Department of Education has surged in the polls recently. Through mostly self-funded campaigning, the millionaire Republican has tried to appeal to younger voters, even though he says climate change is a hoax and wants to raise the voting age to 25.
Ramaswamy’s how-do-you-do-fellow-kids approach included a performance of Eminem’s “Lose Yourself” during an Aug. 12 campaign stop at the Iowa State Fair.
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According to the Daily Mail, the performance caught the attention of Eminem, who sent a cease and desist to the Vivek 2024 campaign. In a letter dated Aug. 23, a representative for music licenser Broadcast Music Inc. (BMI) told the campaign’s lawyers that the label had “received communications from Marshall B. Mathers, III, professionally known as Eminem, objecting to the Vivek Ramaswamy campaign’s use of Eminem’s musical compositions (the “Eminem Works”) and requesting that BMI remove all Eminem Works from the Agreement.”
CityBeat asked the campaign for comment on Slim Shady’s request. A spokesperson with the campaign said Ramaswamy had just “cut loose” in the moment.
“Vivek just got on the stage and cut loose,” said Tricia McLaughlin, communications director for Vivek 2024. “To the American people’s chagrin, we will have to leave the rapping to the real slim shady.”
It’s unclear if Ramaswamy will leave the rapping to the pros entirely during his presidential campaign. After graduating from St. Xavier High School in Cincinnati, Ramaswamy was known by his rap persona “Da Vek” while studying biology at Harvard. Even then, “Lose Yourself” was Ramaswamy’s theme song.
In a Dec. 2006 interview with the Harvard Crimson, Ramaswamy said of Eminem’s seminal song that he thinks “children should be forced to listen to it. The edited version, of course.”
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This article appears in Aug 23 – Sep 5, 2023.
