The buzziest Republican presidential candidate of the moment is Vivek Ramaswamy, a 38-year-old tech entrepreneur from Columbus who became the focal point of last week's debate — largely because all the other candidates present seemed to loathe him and his far-right populist platform, especially his foreign policy takes. If you've learned much about Ramaswamy so far, you know he used to be a libertarian rapper in college, and he has continued that interest in hip-hop by featuring Eminem's "Lose Yourself" on the campaign trail, even rapping along to part of it at the Iowa State Fair.
Eminem, a prominent critic of Donald Trump, is of course not thrilled about this self-styled Trump successor using his music. As TMZ reports, last week Eminem filed a complaint with the performance rights organization BMI objecting to Ramaswamy's use of his music. Per the report, BMI promptly passed along a cease-and-desist letter to Ramaswamy's campaign lawyer. So where rapping along with "Lose Yourself" is concerned, maybe Vivek really did have only one shot?
UPDATE: Ramaswamy responded to Eminem's cease-and-desist in an interview with MSNBC: "I’ll respect his wishes. But I’ll just say, will the real Slim Shady please stand up?" he said. "Eminem, in his rise, used to be a guy who stood up to the establishment and said the things that the establishment didn’t want him to say. I think the fact that my political viewpoints may differ from his, I think people will change over the course of their lives. But I have hope for him, that he will one day rediscover the renegade that made him great. And I’m rooting for that success in his life."
