Daniel Blim

Daniel Blim
University of Michigan

Daniel Blim received his PhD in historical musicology from the University of Michigan in 2013 with a dissertation titled “Patchwork Nation: Collage, Music, and American Identity”. While there, he completed a graduate certificate program in Screen Arts and Cultures and served as a junior fellow in the Sweetland Center for Writing. Dr. Blim currently holds a position as Visiting Adjunct Professor of Music at Drew University. He is also developing a book project on country music and the reception history of Robert Altman’s film Nashville.

Talk Title: Hip Hop Hope: Sampling Obama, Articulating Race

During the 2008 Presidential election, hip hop artists actively supported Barack Obama’s candidacy through song and political advocacy. While journalists and scholars have analyzed how Obama used hip hop to navigate issues of race in the 2008 campaign – embracing it to bolster support among his African-American base while also critiquing it to appeal to a broader white electorate – this paper asserts that hip hop played an active rather than merely supporting role in shaping the discourse of race in election.

A comparison of three hip hop songs that sampled material directly from Obama’s campaign and inauguration reveals how each used Obama to assert different positions on contemporary race relations. Will.i.am’s viral video “Yes We Can” envisions a diverse, multi-racial unity; Nas’s “Black President” acknowledges and ultimately refutes fears among African-Americans that Obama’s mainstream position would not be black or progressive enough and Steinski’s “None Shall Be Afraid” asserts a more militant, Civil Rights era message.
Viewed collectively, they provide a more nuanced treatment of the concept of “post-racialism” that has emerged in the wake of Obama’s victory.