It feels like in the eight years since Barack Obama was president, we gave a lot less of a damn about what our president was listening to on his playlist.

Sure, Biden being Irish is an avid The Chieftains fan. I am too. Back in 2016, we got the Bidens’ summer playlist, which gave us a glimpse of what Jill and Joe were grooving to during their visits to one of my favorite places in the world, Rehoboth Beach, DE. But not much since.

As for what Trump was listening to? No one seemed to care, but in interviews he mentioned he liked show tunes. With anyone else that might be endearing. As for other aspects of his music tastes, including how he views music itself? Pretty much every bit as weird as he is with everything else.

As for Kamala Harris, the presumptive Democratic nominee? The woman has been a candidate for less than a week, and music has already played a big role in the Kamala Harris for President story.

None of this is really surprising, given how much joy she eludes on a regular basis. That joy is contagious, as First Draft’s Cassandra noted yesterday.

The buzz around Harris’s love of music and her impact on pop culture has taken multiple forms. This video-gone-viral of her is a great example of her musical side.

Kamala Harris dancing celebration reaction marching band pic.twitter.com/LdPuqSjphc

— dis ma cookie, dis ma juice, thank u next (@regina_check) July 21, 2024

Another example is the sudden influx of musicians, both young and old, jumping on board to endorse Harris. In fact, Ariana Grande endorsed her within an hour of Biden’s announcement last Sunday. And singer/songwriter Charlie XCX posted “Kamala IS brat.” For those of us unaware of what that means, Charlie XCX’s acclaimed new album is called Brat, and the concept behind it is sort of a response to social media demanding girls and women be perfect all the time. It’s about young women who are not perfect, who make mistakes as part of growing, and like to have a lot of fun even if those with a stick up their ass don’t want them to.

Even if you hate the music, that is irrelevant and not the important part. The important part is reaching young voters.

Then there is Kamala’s personal music tastes, which she is quite enthused about. The buzz around her trip to a DC record store last year was mainly about how this is a person who knows her music. A recent article in The Guardian about her love of music included this:

Even Obama’s and Harris’s music tastes overlap. Where Obama gets rightful credit as the country’s first hip-hop president, from brushing off his shoulders to actually hobnobbing with Jay-Z, Harris is poised to break ground as America’s first b-girl in chief. After the 2020 Democratic national convention, Harris strutted out for her nomination acceptance speech to Mary J Blige’s Work That. “I was so surprised,” Blige told Bravo TV of Harris’s choice – a deep cut, she added. “That made me go back and listen to the Growing Pains album where the song came from. The lyrics in that song are, like, oh my God; I see why she [chose it]. I forgot what I wrote!”

Mary J., who I am a huge fan of, gets the last word with that song below, please take a listen and pay special attention to the lyrics. Oh yes, there is a reason why Harris chose that.

I also loved that she asked the owner where the Charles Mingus was, a sure sign of someone who knows her stuff. A faker might say something like “oh I like jazz, Hello Dolly is one of my favorite songs” (apologies to Satchmo, and please note, there is SO much more to Louis Armstrong than that one tune).

Again, as Cassandra said this week, this is turning out to be The Joy Campaign, a stark contrast to the grouchy, hateful, dishonest doom and gloom of the Trump campaign. May we all feel even more joy in November.

The last word, as promised, goes to Mary J.