The Sunday Comic: YG and Nipsey Hussle's "FDT"

We reimagined YG and Nipsey's politically-charged track aimed at the Republican presidential candidate.

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Complex Original

Image via Complex Original

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With perhaps the most practical hook—in terms of political rally chant purposes—since campaigning for the 2016 presidential election began, YG and Nipsey Hussle take on the current delegate leader on the Republican side: Donald Trump. The song opens with 19-year-old Tahjila Davis, college student, speaking on the events that transpired at a Trump rally at her school, Valdosta State University. "I think we got kicked out because we're a group of black people and like, I guess people...what's going on in America, they're afraid we're gonna say something or do something, but we just wanted to watch the rally, and to get kicked out because we're a group of black people is really crazy," says Davis.

Then YG enters the song defiantly and unequivocally, "Fuck Donald Trump." Eight times. "I like white folks, but I don't like you," he begins in his verse. He and Nipsey trade bars on why Trump is a "cancer" to American society—especially to those historically underprivileged—until eventually, a quote from Donald himself makes its entrance: "I will build a great, great wall on our southern border, and I will have Mexico pay for that wall. Mark my words."

A couple months ago, a few friends and I went to observe a Trump rally in Atlanta. The primary difference between our group and that of Ms. Davis was that we were indeed going to disturb the rally. Underneath an otherwise standard outfit, my companion had on a Sailor Moon dress costume. When we got near the circumference of the largely white crowd, Trump was just beginning to give his speech on this wall with which he intends to line the Mexican-American border. He explained how he would put pressure on the Mexican authorities to pay for the wall, essentially by intimidation, and the audience applauded uproariously in response.

The energy surrounding Trump's wall plan eventually spawned a chant some would call patriotism, others might call it exclusionary, of the letters "U-S-A," in repetition. This, naturally, is when we chose our great reveal of the Sailor Moon costume, which of course, caused a nearly instantaneous reaction among our fellow rally attendees. An older woman started shaking with rage, pointing at us as though a rat had been found in the kitchen. We had never said anything anti-Trump, nor expressed anything outwardly negative about his campaign, but the change of clothes was enough to get us escorted from the premises by police. 

Though our stunt may have only succeeded in confusing some Trump fanatics, YG and Nipsey take a clearer approach to the issue of the proposed wall. "Hold up, I fuck with Mexicans, got a plug with Mexicans," starts YG. "It wouldn't be the U.S.A. without Mexicans," continues Nipsey, speaking of the same "U.S.A." chanted at that aforementioned Trump rally, but this time using it to express solidarity with immigrants instead of a xenophobic nationalism.

Hopefully for the two L.A. rap spokesmen, this song resonates with an audience that may have otherwise not voted, and its hook makes its way into the megaphones of rallies and protests. It's pretty catchy. Perhaps at the ballot box, Nipsey's voice will manifest in the minds of the undecided: "You vote Trump, then you're probably on dope."

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