#1 At The Ballot Box | Get To The Hook Podcast

Welcome to Get to the Hook. I am your co-host, Charles Latibodiere. And I am your co-host, Eric Colley. And this week, The Hook is something we hope everyone has already done, because it's too late now if you haven't. It's election day. It was election day this week. It is as we're recording this. As we are recording, yes, we hope people are going to the polls and casting their vote. And what does that have to do with hit music? There are a lot of hitmakers who have actually run for office. And won. And won, which I'm not sure all of them were expecting to win, but some of them did. And there's one in particular right now who is not running for office, but may end up. This would be the most shocking thing. Would it? It really would be. Ten years ago, it would have been. Now, I don't think it'd be shocking at all. I know it's hard to be shocked by anything that happens in the Trump administration. Because it is the most, how do I say, untraditional. There you go. The most non-traditional administration in the White House ever. But Nicki Minaj becoming the White House press secretary would take the cake. But it's so easy to see it. Pardon the phrase, take the cake. But yes, it totally would take the cake. I just don't, it's been talked about. I would not be shocked to see it happen at this point. As we know, Katie Zakaria was the White House press secretary and she lasted all of five days. She's gone now. They need a new White House press secretary. And Donald Trump was on the podcast, The Benny Show, and was asked about Nicki Minaj, who was a big Trump supporter, Becoming the White House press secretary and he said that's a good idea. I think I'll have to think about that I'm gonna think about that and once he says he's gonna think about it. Who knows any anything good Well in after that even Stephen Chung who's the White House communications director posted a video of Nicki Minaj Doing an interview on Air Force One and the caption was ladies and gentlemen I think we may have found the new White House press secretary She's at least as qualified as Katie Zakaria would be, and you could make the argument that she's more qualified as far as just experience in front of a microphone, in front of... And combative interviews. Combative, yes. Yeah. Definitely she's used to that. I mean, it would be entertaining. It would be entertaining, but I'm tired of being entertained in that way. I want normal politics. I kind of miss it. So what would be, would she have intro music before every press briefing? You know, like a lot of people in the Trump cabinet, she would probably record a new song and then play it and then start teasing her new release. And then after all the questions, she'd be like, just, you know, official White House statement, my new single drops on Friday. So, so. She could. I mean, would that be the wildest thing in the world now? No, I guess it... Yes, it still would be. I'm sorry, it wouldn't be. It would be. It'd be crazy. You know, I was just thinking, though, Nicki's been very polarizing for a very long time now with a lot of people, even within our own fan base with the Barbs. But, you know, there was a point when we all liked her. So let's go back to some happier times real quick. Back to 2011. Here's some super bass. I mean, can't you hear that just ringing through the West Wing? Before every press briefing, like that's how they know that the press briefing's about to start. Super Bass is just playing in the hallways. It can't happen. Here's the only reason I think it won't happen. Actually, even as I'm thinking it, I realize this doesn't make sense, but you can't have someone become your press secretary after you have publicly pointed out their ass. You have publicly... Well, one person could do that. That's Donald Trump. What's wrong? I'm sorry. That was the moment where I was like, Okay, she's not going to be... If you missed it a few weeks ago at one of the rallies and he made a comment about her ass and said, oh, you can't miss it. Look at it. Look at that. He's had a weird obsession with backsides lately, mostly for men, oddly. Yeah, mostly for men. He's been pointing that out a lot. Nikki was the one female butt that he chose to talk about. You can't have that person. Isn't there some sort of HR? There's no HR in that way. No, I mean, the lady who did Anaconda, like, you get an HR complaint, is she going to file? I don't know what could happen there. It would be the wildest press conferences in history, though. I would want to see it just for that. But as far as being an... But like as an SNL sketch, not as actual reality. All right, let's move on to some people who actually did get into politics. Nikki's just been on... She's been adjacent, attending rallies and everything. But as we said, some big songs. Yeah, big artists. Before Bakers' Zoo? Before. Before we get to the ones who did win, I'm going to mention a couple who didn't. Because, you know, we've got love for losers. Got to have the also-rans. That's right. Kanye. Going from Nikki to Kanye. Remember in 2020, he ran as president as a member of the birthday party. And everybody thought that was a joke, but he was very serious about it. Did he actually get votes? He must have. I'm sure he got some. I mean, obviously not enough to mean anything, but he tried. He was sincere about it. A little bit more traditional, Clay Aiken. You remember he ran for Congress in North Carolina? Yep. And... He got deep into the process, and he was very, very sincere about that, but he did not win. And then, of course, there are the ones that are jokes. Back in 1980, Joe Walsh from the Eagles ran for president, which was definitely a joke because he was only 32 at the time, and you have to be 35 to be president. And then also Alice Cooper has run for president almost every election cycle since 1972. Really? Yes. It's mostly... Just goes like as a write-in candidate? Sort of. It's mostly to point out the ridiculousness of politics and the uselessness of politicians. In 2016, his campaign slogan was, I can do nothing as well as they can do nothing, which is pretty good. That's a pretty good slogan. I mean... Yeah. I don't know how many votes he's ever gotten. It's a little long on a bumper sticker, but... Yeah. But it's true. They don't, they don't do a whole lot to argue, hard to argue. All right, let's get to the ones who did the ones who won the successful successful politicians. We're talking about the only United States representative ever who had a number one hit. It's got to be a guy from California. It is. It is Sonny Bono. Yes. Of course, famously of Sonny and Cher, they went to number one with I Got You, Babe. I'm not going to play that song, though, because we all know Cher had, of course, an incredible solo career after her breakup with Sonny. Did you know Sonny Bono had a top 10 hit without Cher? I did not know that. Yes, you did. I thought he was, I don't want to say nothing without her, but musically. No, he had a song that went to number 10 in the 60s. This is Laugh At Me. It's a big kind of wall of sound. Well, he was buddies with Phil Spector. Yeah, yeah. That was part of it. So yeah, no share in that song. That is... That is just Sonny, and he had a top 10 hit. And maybe that song could have been used on the campaign trail. Maybe it was. Might have been, because people did laugh at him. Yeah, people thought it was a joke. And it's so funny how he got into politics before he was a U.S. representative. He was the mayor of Palm Springs, California. And the reason he was mayor of Palm Springs was because he wanted to open a restaurant and had to go through all this legal red tape and all the zoning restrictions and regulations and all these things, and he was so frustrated by the whole process. And like a lot of people, and this is sort of the ideal of American politics, I mean, despite being, you know, a famous, successful, wealthy person, he was still just a citizen. And he thought, I need to change this. I'm going to do it myself. I'm going to run for office. He won. He was mayor of Palm Springs from 88 to 92. Then he ran for the U.S. Senate in 92. He lost that, but he was elected as a representative for California as a Republican in 1995 and served that until he died in a skiing accident in 1998. And left behind some meaningful legislation, similar to his experience. Didn't his widow, she ran, I think she actually won that seat later on. I think she did. Mary Bono? Yeah, Mary. I think she did win, I think, that same seat. Maybe not right after his death, but eventually. Well, a few months after he died, obviously before he died, he'd co-sponsored a bill about extending copyright protections so that things didn't become public domain quite so soon. The bill didn't go through when he was in office. After he died, eight months later, it did go through. It was passed, and they named it the Sonny Bono Copyright Term Extension Act. And some people jokingly called it the Mickey Mouse Protection Act because Disney really supported this because at the time, Mickey Mouse was about to become public domain. Oh. And Disney did not want to see that happen. So they were very fond of this bill of extending their copyright. I'm sure they put a lot of support behind it. I'm sure they did. But obviously that was something that meant something to Sonny Bono. He understood about copyrights. Yeah. And that act still has his name on it. There you go. Don't laugh at him. Don't laugh at Sonny. He did all right. He did all right. He did. Do you remember Orleans? I love this one. Big Orleans fan? Just that one song. I mean... They had two really big hits. They had two big hits. One of them, though, is just like, every time, I'm going to admit, every time it comes on, it gets turned up. It is 70s soft rock feel goodiness. Their first top 10 hit was a song called Dancing With Me. It's just a bouncy, fun song. This song doesn't put a smile on your face. What are you doing? I don't know. We're talking about Orleans, their top 10 hit. This is still the one. If that's not a bop, I don't know what is. That is a bop. It really is. It sounds just as good and fresh now as it did in 1976. Some good upstate New York fellas. They are, and particularly Orleans co-founder John Hall, who is a guitar player and backing vocalist, and I think he sang lead on a couple songs too. He was a big environmental guy, anti-nuke guy, and he ran for the Democratic representative seat for New York's 19th district, which covers the Catskills and the Hudson Valley, and he got elected. Yeah. The dude from Orleans served from 2007 to 2011, but then he got voted out and went back to Orleans and toured with them off and on until 2022. But I think it's kind of funny that in 2010, when he was running, he lost his reelection bid to a Republican named Nan Hayworth. And in her campaign, Nan promoted a fictional group called Young Voters for an Orleans Reunion Tour. And it worked. I think it made him look a little jokey to some people. And the funniest thing is, is when he lost the office in 2011, in 2012, he did go back to Orleans and they did do a reunion tour. So, hey, you know, it's good to have a backup plan. Although, I don't know if that's a backup plan. I think politics was the backup plan. You know, formed in Woodstock, New York. So, interesting that No Nukes was part of his platform. I don't know how much he campaigned on that, because No Nukes, to me, seemed like such a 70s thing. By the time he was running, yeah. In the 2000s, that was not a thing. That was not a top-of-mind stuff. But I'm sure that I get that when they formed in Woodstock, that was something that... They were concerned about, and a lot of people in that area are very concerned about the ecology and the environment. And a lot of people still are. Certainly are. It's still something people, not everybody, but a lot of people do still care about that. Talk about those who believe in it. Those who believe in it. There's some who don't. Talk about a Motown legend who came for office. Martha Reeves. Yes. Lead singer of Martha and the Vandellas. They had a run in the 60s. Not quite as big as The Supremes or The Temptations, but songs like Dancing in the Street, Nowhere to Run, Jimmy Mack, and my personal favorite of their hits, this is Heat Wave. We'll You know why you have heat waves? Because of climate change. be What climate change? What are you talking about? Yes. Yeah. right Martha Reeves, remember she ran for city council in Detroit. I do recall that, yes. back. And part of it was she wanted to revive and honor Motown's legacy in Detroit. And that was a big part of what she was there to do. I think she put up statues of all the great Motown artists and stuff. But it's something that is a tourist thing for Detroit. It's part of, I always think of it as, and I don't. I don't know that this is, but I always think of it as part of the revival of Detroit, like that they did embrace, and I'm not saying that Martha was the only person who wanted to do this, but to embrace that history of that city. It is just as important as the auto industry as far as what people think when you think of Detroit. It's those two things. It is those two things. And the auto industry sadly kind of died in Detroit by and large, but Motown is still, culturally will always be historically important and relevant. Yeah, and then M&M third. And then M&M. Yeah. Which, by the way, for Eminem would tell you that's a great label. Oh, to be behind. To be behind those two things. The auto industry and Motown, that's not bad. Yeah. And that's not, yeah, it's not a knock on Eminem. Not at all. I mean, he would be happy to be in that ranking. Well, also Motown was, I mean, it's so, I mean, Eminem definitely lives and breathes Detroit, but Motown, it's in the name. Yes, it's right there in the name. It's hard not to. And it's so cool to go to that. Like, if you ever go to Detroit, and you should, being in that. Studio is Hitsville USA. Yeah, it's amazing. It's like you just say it's the same thing as like when you go to Sun Records in in Thank Memphis just standing in there realizing what happened in this building and most of it is is unchanged Yeah, it's pretty amazing. Do you remember a couple years ago? We did a Christmas special when Smokey Robinson came in and talked about the Motown Christmas parties as early ones We're in that tiny little studio. So you have you. All of these legendary figures just hanging out and he was like, oh, like, you know, Marvin Gaye would hop on the piano and just play something and people would jump in and sing. Like, imagine that. I always think about, like, and remember him describing it, and, you know, like, did they realize, like, to them, they were just at their office party. They don't realize that the people in that room are going to be remembered forever. Yeah, I don't... They would have known they were successful and, you know, we're stars, we have hit records, you know that, but... All those people like to know that they're going to be icons, you know, Smokey and Marvin and Stevie and Diana Ross and just all the temptations, like all these people just hanging out together and impromptu singing and performing. And just, I mean, it's a shame that there wasn't somebody in the booth rolling tape on that. Right. Exactly. I mean, I would honestly, I'd buy a record of just. Just to hear them hanging out and riffing on some stuff. Yeah, that would be so incredible. Well, that was partly, I think, what got Martha Reeves elected in 2005 as city councilwoman. She was there for four years until 2009. It was a little rough when she left. She did not get reelected in 2009. She made a real big mistake on a flyer she sent out. So she was trying to show that she was supported by the Lions Club, which is a big international service organization. So she tried to say that, you know, she was supported by a member of the Detroit Lions, and she took the logo for the Detroit Lions football team. So everybody's like, wait, Martha Reeves plays for the Lions? Ooh. Yeah, it became a real joke. And when you become a joke as a candidate, it's real hard to win re-election. I mean, their logos are kind of similar, maybe? I mean, it is the Detroit Lions club. It's the Detroit Lions. Football club? That's an honest mistake. I mean, I have a feeling that probably just had more to do with how she... And people were not entirely happy with everything she did. I mean, the Motown stuff was great. I don't think they loved everything. And when that election was over, when she lost, her quote was, I'm glad it's over, but I don't regret it at all. Yeah. Which I guess is a fair way of... You throw your hat in the ring, you try it. Politics is not for everybody. I don't know why anybody would want to do it, honestly. I don't. Actually, that's not true. I get why you would want to. Because some of them make a lot of money. Well, that's part of it. But also, I get that people are frustrated. And also, if you're like a hit singer, you already know that you have a platform, so you think, I can have some success, right? We talked about Sonny Bono, like Yeah, he wanted something done. And so, he knew that he had... success and a name and a brand, and that would help him over the finish line. But he was very sincere about it, and for all the jokes about Sonny Bono, the man was smart. Yes. He was a smart man, and he understood politics. He knew how to get in there. The problem is, though, once you get into it, you realize how difficult it is to get anything done. Of course. Because there are just so many obstacles and so many... asses you have to kiss. Yeah. That you may not be willing to. And then you get all the special interest groups and everything impacting everything. They're knocking on the door. And so that's the part where you go like, why would anybody do this? I wonder with Sonny, you know he obviously he died in that skiing accident in 98. Had he not died, how long do you think he would have served? I mean, he could still be there, honestly. Yeah, I mean. There are representatives who've been there since the 90s, certainly. I mean, he'd be deep into his 80s at this point. He would have probably run for a higher office. He would have run for Senate at some point. Well, he'd already tried that. Right, but it's different when you're actually a congressman to actually do it. But would he have had presidential aspirations? Probably not. I don't think so. Probably not. I don't think he would have wanted that. No. But if he had run for president, would Sheriff campaign for him? Because also, Sonny was Republican. And Cher is very little. Cher is very much not that. And, I mean, they got, you know, they were on good terms when he died. Yeah. But I don't know if she would have been out stumping for him or anything. I don't know. Probably not. I don't know. All right, this next one, this is one of my favorite bits of trivia in music. Did you know that a United States vice president wrote a number one song? This is true. Oh, is the answer Al Gore? Yes. No, it's not Al Gore. No? It's not a recent one, I'll tell you that. Okay. No, Mike Pence did not write a number one hit for Taylor Swift. That didn't happen. We've got to go back a bit. But still, a legit, actual United States Vice President. His name was Charles Dawes. Okay. And he was Vice President for Calvin Coolidge from 1925 to 1929. Duh. Everybody knows that. Everybody knows that. But this is an interesting story. So long before he was Vice President, Charles Dawes was an amateur musician. He played piano and flute. And around 1911, 1912, he composed a piece of music called Melody in A Major. And it was actually a fairly popular song in the early 1900s. Then music was not his calling, got into politics, became vice president. What did it mean to have a hit song in the early 1900s? He sold sheet music. I mean, I don't know. It wasn't like a hit like that. But it was a song that I guess some people knew. It wasn't just like he wrote it and put it in a drawer and nobody ever knew about it. 1951, jumping ahead 40 years after he wrote it, long after he'd been vice president, Early in 1951, Charles Dawes died. Shortly after he died, a lyricist named Carl Sigman had a song that he had lyrics for, but he didn't have music for. He didn't have a songwriting partner. And he found melody in A major and thought, that is a good melody. And he fit his lyrics to that song and rearranged it. And then a ton of people recorded the song he wrote. Louis Armstrong recorded it, Nat King Cole, Dinah Shore. And a young singer named Tommy Edwards, who was the least famous of those people, obviously. Louis Armstrong, Nat King Cole, those are legends. Tommy Edwards had a minor top 20 hit with this song. Jump ahead again to 1958. What happened between 1951 and 1958? Rock and roll happened. Sure. Tommy Edwards is kind of past his commercial peak at this point, but he's in a studio. You had to buy time in a studio back then. Like, okay, we're going to block out like three hours. He had a couple minutes, maybe half an hour or so left in his studio time, was finished. He was like, hey, you know that song I did in 51? Let's redo that as a rock and roll ballad. And so they had the time, they had the musicians there, and they recorded an updated version of this song. It got released. It spent six weeks at number one in 1958. Wow. Billboard still ranks it as one of the 100 biggest hits of all time based on chart performance. As a throwaway at the end of the studio time. And it's a song whose co-writers are Carl Sigman, lyricist, and Charles G. Dawes, musician, and he was the vice president for Calvin Coolidge in 1958. He co-wrote this massive number one hit for Tommy Edwards. This is It's All in the Game. Many a tear has to fall. But it's all... Yeah, that basic melody was written by Calvin Coolidge's vice president, a guy who was a heartbeat away from being the president of this country. Huh. Yeah, and it was a huge, huge hit. There's a sordid tale. How you ended up... I know. That we got from a guy writing this piano thing in 1911 or 1912. Huh. That's interesting, because I was wondering, I was like, I could not find... I was like, how are we getting there? I was like, how was Tommy Edwards? I was like, I know he didn't run for office. No. I didn't realize that it was a vice president. Who was already dead by the time It's All in the Game was written. I mean, the music he had written decades before, but he died before Tommy Edwards released the original version, much less the 1958 version. It's not the same as running for office. But Tommy Edwards, that song, if I read correctly, was the first time a black artist, male black artist, was number one. That is true. A little bit of an asterisk. Uh-oh. Well, no, it is true. He was the first black artist to hit number one on the Hot 100. But remember, the Hot 100 wasn't officially introduced until August of 1958. Ah. So he was, it wasn't a long wait. Right. I mean, because Nat King Cole had had number one hits in the 50s. Right. Just that particular chart, which we still use today, did start on August 4th, 1958. So Tommy Edwards was technically. So he gets the technical, but there were people who weren't. That's just because that's when that chart started. Right. So. Okay. It's an asterisk. It's like being the first black artist to have a number one on the streaming chart. Right. Well, you weren't the first black artist. Right. You just happened to be. Sorry, Drake. I don't know who it is. It's probably not. Probably not. No, probably not. When did the streaming chart start? Maybe it was Soulja Boy. Maybe Soulja Boy. I don't know. We're going to hear from Soulja Boy, and he's going to be like, hey, you've got to let me on, man. Whether he was or not, he'll tell us he was. It's okay. And we'll believe it. Oh, man. All right, one more. By the way, speaking of which, Soulja Boy says he's running for president, so. That is true. Yeah. Please just move on quickly. You know what makes me feel really bad about that? I mean. So many things. So many things. But when Soulja Boy, when Crank That hit number one in 2007. Soulja Boy was only the second person born in the 90s to have a number one hit. He was a teenager. He was 17 when that song hit number one. As we said earlier, you have to be 35 to run for president. Soulja Boy's 36 now. Because when he first said he was gonna run for president, I'm like, he's not old enough. Oh my god, yes he is. And now look at that. Yes he is. Blink and now he's old enough. Now he's slip sliding towards 40. Weird that he's getting older and we're staying the same age. I know. Anyway. Anyway. Last one is, are you a big fan of the rapper Young Cardamom? I can't say that I am. I can't say that I am at all. Well, he started as Young Cardamom. Then he changed his name to Mr. Cardamom when he wasn't so young anymore. I had heard about his career, but I had not actually heard any of his music until you selected these. Well, before we tell you who Young Cardamom is, what his real name is, he was a rapper born in Uganda, and his mother, I did not know this, his mother was an Oscar-nominated filmmaker. I did not. She directed a movie in 1988 that was nominated for the Oscars in 1989 for Best International Film for her debut movie called Salaam Bombay. In 2016, she was a very successful filmmaker. She did a movie with Disney called Queen of Katwe, and she hired her son to be the music supervisor, Cole Nepo. And he put his own song on the soundtrack. So he does have a video on Disney's official YouTube channel for this song, number one, Spice. I love you very, I love you nice. Some of you I hate, but I love, love spice. So if I can't see you, I'll score you with my face. Say, but don't pass me down. So those of you watching on YouTube, you get it. If you're just listening, You probably would never, ever pick that out. No, that was in his mid-20s at that point in 2016. That is young, not young Kardamom, young Zoran Mamdani. Yes, the now mayor of New York City who was rapping. A legit rapper. Who was rapping back in the early 2000s. And for a while. And that's why he changed his name from young Kardamom to mister. And then just another taste of his music. I kind of like that he does bring a lot of his Ugandan. background and the culture into his music and there's also a sense of comedy to it so he did a gangster rap song. I always wonder was he doing it with a like when I look at it now it seems comedic because of who he's become when he made it I wonder if it was intended to be comedic. Definitely this next song that's the thing it kind of toes the line between sincere and almost parody so it's this sort of gangster rap song about the baddest woman in New York City is Nani. His grandmother, and this is a little bit of Mr. Cardamom and his song Nani. It's time for you. And I didn't get, I wasn't able to play it, but the verses of that, he whispers it. Remember the Whisper song by the Ying Yang Twins? Yes. It was all, whisper about you. And there's a part where he says she runs the city, and that cracked me up, because now he literally runs the city. He literally runs the city. He is the mayor of New York City. Uh-huh. But yeah, started as a rapper, pursued that, was music supervisor for his mom's film. Was rapping straight out the Bronx, man. And then VX, again. And it was rap. At the source. Yeah. It was rap that got him into politics because of the artist he was listening to, and he kind of was like, oh, wait, what are they talking about? And he got into politics, and he started volunteering with people and got really involved and interested, and now he's the mayor of the biggest city in the world. Can't beat Bronx hip-hop. There you go. Yeah. Ugandan Bronx hip-hop. Started, yeah, started rapping while he was in high school. Went to the same high school as my nephew. Oh, really? Who's not a rapper. At the same time? No, not at the same time. Yeah, I guess your nephew wouldn't be that old. Yeah, he's not that old. I'm not that, how could I have an, what the? You could have a much older brother or sister. You could have a much older sibling. I wish, but unfortunately I don't. I went to school with, I mean, this may be West Virginia, but I went to a school with a kid whose uncle was older than him. I mean, younger than him. Oh yeah. I know some of those people. Yeah. It's like you're, you're, you're a, you're an accident late in life kid and you have much older siblings who already have kids. I do know some of those people. It happens. It could happen. And it might be related to some of them also. Anyway. I would tell people to go vote, but by the time they're hearing this, it's already too late. Well, you know, I hope you did go vote next year and the year after it is important. It's like. It's really interesting, like, I've been just today walking around the office talking to some of the young people asking if they voted and some haven't, trying to explain to them why it's important. And I get, at a young age, you don't necessarily think that it matters that much, you know, oh, it's just one vote. But it is the greatest power you have in this country. It really is. Whatever your beliefs are, it's the power we have, that is the power of the people. It is. Quite frankly, the coolest thing about this country. Yeah. So you should exercise that right. Next time it comes up, if you missed it this time, shame on you. But that's all right. That's all right. And you never know. Maybe Nicki Minaj will be running for something in two years. She can't run for president. She won't run for president. No. But she's not born. And Zoran Mamdani can never be U.S. president. He was born in Uganda. He certainly probably will be running for something else at some point. Something else. Yeah. Senator Young Cardamom. Come on. You can expect to see those songs on the campaign trail. Yeah. That is going to do it for us. We will see you next time on Get To The...