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"Jay Smooth, the host of the Underground Railroad hip-hop show on WBAI radio in NY and video blogger at Ill Doctrine, put out this cover of Jay-Z's \"Glory\" yesterday as a tribute, of sorts, to the GOP's presidential nominee apparent. \"Phony\" is a song for Mitt Romney, and it was a good enough summation of the conservatives' lament to land on the web pages of the National Review Online yesterday. GQ talked to Jay about Mitt's enthusiasm gap, hip hop's \"greed is good\" ethos, and why there aren't more right-wing rappers.\n\n\n\nGQ: What was your inspiration?\n\nJay Smooth: The two big stories at the beginning of the year were Jay-Z and Beyonce having their baby (and Jay's song in her honor), and the primary season starting off with the Iowa caucuses, and I was struck by the contrast between Jay-Z's joyful enthusiasm for his newborn daughter and the GOP's total absence of enthusiasm for Romney. So I thought it'd be fun to do a version of Jay-Z's song welcoming Blue Ivy, but from the POV of Republican voters \"welcoming\" Romney as their likely nominee.\n\nGQ: But you're not actually a Republican, right?\n\n Jay Smooth: I'm not a Republican, but I was trying to portray a \"Republican rapper\" in a way that was basically respectful to Republican voters, and sort of commiserating with them instead of belittling them along with Romney. I wanted to avoid playing up a \"GOP voters are all stupid\" stereotype. So I took it as a compliment when right-leaning outlets like the National Review posted it up believing I was actually a disgruntled Republican rapper.\n\nGQ: Have you heard the Newt Gingrich rap? What about the mini-genre of Ron Paul rap songs? How do they match up?\n\n Jay Smooth: I haven't heard any genuinely right-wing raps yet that were credible from a hip-hop or musical standpoint, which in a way is surprising since there are arguably a lot of conservative ideals represented in mainstream hip-hop. I think there are quite a few emcees who would take \"vulture capitalist\" as a compliment.\n\nGQ: Right! I sometimes marvel at why Republicans aren't more into hip hop. What I listen to, at least, is very pro-capitalist\u2014all about pulling yourself up by the bootstraps and making something out of nothing. Very aspirational.\n\nJay Smooth: Yeah, I mean needless to say hip-hop has a diverse range of expression, and even the rappers most known for \"get money\" ethos usually have more complexity to their story when you really dig in (Jay-Z, the self-described \"Che Guevara with bling on,\" is a perfect example). So I don't want to overplay the comparison, but all those themes undoubtedly run through a lot of hip-hop, and where it used to have a subversive context since it was coming from disenfranchised outsiders, as hip-hop has become assimilated into mainstream America one could say it's gotten harder to distinguish hip-hop's \"greed is good\" cheerleaders from their counterparts on Wall Street.\n\nGQ: Do you still think Romney is inevitable?\n\nJay Smooth: Yes, I think he's inescapable barring some major scandal or titanic gaffe. Romney's saving grace is that none of his competitors are really viable either, so he can't give the lead away no matter how many times he tries. I think Romney has been blessed with the only opponents he could ever beat (and President Obama might be getting a similar blessing come November).\n\nRead more from Death Race 2012\n\n\"How Crazy is Ron Paul? Sweater Edition\"\n\n\"President Santorum? For Real? GOP Staffers React to Tuesday's Sweep\"\n\n\"Ann Romney: The GOP's Leslie Knope\"\n\nFollow Marin on Twitter for more updates from the campaign trail."^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://www.gq.com/story/the-gqa-jay-smooth>