Obama Reveals Jay-Z, Eminem Tracks Were Go-To Artists During Presidential Campaigns

May 20, 2026

Former U.S. president Barack Obama details pre-debate rituals that included Jay-Z and Eminem.

Barack Obama leaned on two of Hip-Hop’s most pressure-tested anthems before stepping onto the debate stage during his presidential campaigns, the former president reveals in a new op-ed for Rolling Stone magazine.

Obama writes that Jay-Z’s “My 1st Song” and Eminem’s “Lose Yourself” became fixtures of his pre-debate routine. He said both songs captured the feeling of an underdog with everything on the line.

“A couple of songs about defying the odds and putting it all on the line,” Obama writes of the tunes. “Maybe because they felt suited to my yearly underdog status.”

The former commander-in-chief describes riding to debate venues alone in the back of a Secret Service SUV, headphones on, using the music to cut through the gravity of the moment.

“Nodding to the beat, I would feel the pomp and circumstance and artifice of my immediate surroundings melt away,” he writes.

Obama says he eased into those sessions with jazz before transitioning to rap, citing Miles Davis’ “Freddie Freeloader,” from the landmark 1959 album Kind of Blue, and John Coltrane’s “My Favorite Things” as early anchors in the rotation.

By his first presidential run in 2008, the rituals had become something closer to superstition.

“During my first presidential campaign, I became a bit particular, maybe a little superstitious, about my debate-day rituals,” he writes.

Obama and Hip-Hop have a relationship that stretches back to his earliest days on the national political stage. Obama openly identified as a rap listener and some regard him as the “first Hip-Hop president.”

Artists like Chance the Rapper, Nas, Kendrick Lamar, SZA, Drake, and others have also been recurring presences on Obama’s widely followed annual playlist releases.

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