Music Blogs

So, how to get the historic election result in America into our daily music news bulletin. Easy, just turn to planet hip hop for some political comment.

First up, Jay Z, who took to the mic as voting began yesterday to encourage his fans to cast their vote for Barack Obama. According to the Philadelphia Enquirer he told black America: "I need y'all to be really, really quiet for this. I need you to really understand what I'm telling you. Rosa Parks sat so Martin Luther King could walk. Martin Luther King walked so Obama could run. Obama's running so we all can fly".

P Diddy, meanwhile, told reporters what it felt like to vote for Obama at his local Manhattan polling station yesterday. Diddy: "I felt like my vote was the vote that put him into office. It was down to one vote, and that was going to be my vote. And that may not be true, but that's how much power it felt like I had. I'm not trying to be dramatic, but I just felt like, Martin Luther King, and I felt the whole civil rights movement, I felt all that energy, and I felt my kids. It was all there at one time. It was a joyous moment".

Finally in our hip hop election round up, Nas has recorded a track to commemorate Obama's historic win at the polls. The new song, called 'Election Night', was apparently conceived over a dinner Monday night in Norway of all places. Nas is on tour there, and recorded the track with producer DJ Green Lantern, who told MTV yesterday: "I'm currently on tour in Europe with Nas and we were at dinner last night talking about how crazy it is that we're not in the states on Election Day. Someone quoted a verse from [recent Nas album track] 'Black President', when he said 'What's the Black Prez thinkin' on Election Night?' And Nas said, 'Set up the mic - I'm gonna speak on that'. And the result is 'Election Night'".

You can hear the song at this here URL: www.xxlmag.com/online/?p=29189

-- from today's CMU Daily, www.cmudaily.co.uk