Historically, Florida has been one of the most vital swing states for presidential candidates. That won’t change for the 2012 presidential election.
However, President Barack Obama might have an ace in the hole. And that ace comes in the form of five young men from Orlando who aren’t even old enough to vote.
Limitless 5 is a group of teenagers who are willing to work, campaign and, most importantly, sing to make sure Barack Obama gets reelected this fall.
Limitless 5 is made up of Demetrius, 17, Cameron, 17, Demerious, 16, Raheem, 16, and Stephen, 15. The group met each other during chorus classes last year. Stephen’s father, Derek Ross, who is now their mentor and manager, saw the potential and bond that the boys shared and merged the kids together.
The boys, who shared an equal passion for music and politics, were sick of seeing the public beating that our president endures sometimes. And, realizing that it’s election season, they collectively wrote and recorded “Let’s Do It Again (Obama 2012),” a catchy song encouraging people to vote and support the president. They also designed a nifty looking t-shirt that they are selling on their site.
The video became huge. It currently has over 400,000 views on YouTube and the buzz became so loud that our boss, Russell Simmons, heard it and was impressed.
So we decided to reach out, and what we found out was remarkable.
The boys aren’t even close to being done.
While other teenagers are thinking about playing in the park and video games, Limitless 5 will be spending the next couple of weeks going to the Obama for America training center. Then they will spend the upcoming months participating in voter’s registration drives trying to get people to vote.
It’s going to be a busy couple of months for the boys. Luckily, they had time to talk to us.
GlobalGrind: How did the song come about?
Stephen: We collaborated for hours, all five of us. We were just throwing out ideas, ‘what are we going to do?’ We really wanted to impact something; we really wanted to make a difference to the world. We all heard the “Lets Do It Again” song made by The Staple Singers, and we all just thought: what if we do a reminiscent old school classic of that kind of song but we change it a little bit? So then, we were like lets call it “Let’s Do It Again” and make it for President Obama. then we designed the t-shirts at Lake Eola. Lake Eola is the heart of Orlando. We really wanted to empty our minds to create the best type of t-shirt that we could. We kept on dropping different designs, and Raheem over there came up with a great design, and we just went with that one.
Raheem, talk about the process of making the t-shirt.
Raheem: Well, it didn’t take that long. We all took turns coming up with the design and everyone liked mine the most, and we went with that one.
Most kids your age aren’t writing songs about Obama.
Demetrius: That is true, most kids aren’t, but we’re the kind of kids that want to be out there with our community. We’re African American kids and having an African American president is important to us. We wanted to establish that by making the song and making a difference because most kids our age aren’t able to do that, but we knew that we could.
How does it make ya’ll feel when you hear slick comments against Obama?
I hate when I see our president is being bashed for reasons that are usually made up or out of his control. It makes no sense to me. We want to change that. We want to give people a new view about our president.
Do any of you see a future in politics?
I think we’re all interested in music. I think the most political thing we would probably do is be a lawyer for the music industry. But we all want to have a future in the music industry, being performers, winning Grammy awards.
Who are some of favorite artist?
Cameron: Chris Brown, Miguel, Usher, John Legend, Stevie Wonder — those kinds of artists.
Stephen, talk about your dad, Derek Ross.
Stephen: He’s a great person. I really look up to him as an inspiration. He tells me wisdom everyday. I just love my dad.
How about the other kids. How do ya’ll feel about Mr. Ross?
Cameron: Oh, he’s a great guy. Everything he does is to help us out.
What do you want to ultimately achieve with the song, the t-shirts and the whole movement you’re doing?
Stephen: We want people to get out there and really make a difference in President Obama’s campaign. We want people to register. We want people to vote. We want people to volunteer. We want people to do everything they can do to help President Obama win this election.
What do you think are his chances of getting reelected?
I think his chances are 150%
What is it about Obama that ignites your passion?
Demetrius: He’s just great. The way that he is able to lead this country, the suave that you can say he has, his integrity. Republicans don’t like president Obama so right now they’re trying hard to uncover something from deep down in his past and they haven’t been able to, because he’s a man of high character and integrity, and that’s something we all should look up to.
If all of you can have a sit down or dinner with Obama what would you talk about or ask him?
We would all have various questions. But basically, we would ask him, what keeps him up at night? What made him get all those grey hairs? (Laughs) There’s a lot of things.
Stephen: And also, how did it first feel when you stepped on an air force one? That’s the most craziest plane I’ve ever seen. I mean, that plane is just so amazing — the mechanics, everything is just amazing about that plane.
How would you convince a Romney supporter to vote for Obama?
Demetrius: There’s a number of reasons: he passed Universal health care that’s going to enable so many people in the country to finally have free health care. That’s amazing; that’s insane. He’s been able to turn around our economic situation. I mean, it’s not all the way there but it’s still a lot better than when he took office. He brought the war in Iraq to an end. There were 170,000 troops, now there’s 50,000. He brought in Supreme Court judges, two women, which hasn’t happened in a long time in our system.
Talk about the response of the video? Ya’ll have over 400,000 views on YouTube. How does that make you feel.
Stephen: We’re very grateful everyday. We thank god for all the people that have been supporting us and have been supporting president Obama. We didn’t even think it was going to go that viral.
What’s the next step?
Demetrius: I’d say creating more songs, putting things out there, having more people follow, especially for the Barack Obama campaign. Hopefully what we made will be something like “Obama Girl” back in 2008, something impactful like that, so a lot of people will be aboard the Obama train. As for the group itself, making it in the music industry, winning awards, Grammys, having important music out, getting signed — that’ll be great for all of us.
Since you guys are in Orlando, you’re pretty close to the Trayvon Martin situation, what’s your perspective on everything that happened?
Raheem: This is like 30 minutes away. It could’ve been any one of us because he looks like any one of us.
Demetrius: It is really scary just to think that could happen, like Raheem said, just a quick 20-minute drive and we’re right there, where that happened. That could’ve happened right here in this neighborhood, at our school, to one of friends, to one of us.
What do you think should happen to Zimmerman? And what do you think will happen?:
I think George Zimmerman should be locked up for the rest of his life for taking someone else’s life, someone who had a bag of skittles and a Arizona iced tea.
Do you feel confident justice will be served?
This is America, so I think it will be.
Have any of you had to change the way you move around in Orlando?
Stephen: We’re very careful. We make sure that we pull our pants up when we walk next to anybody. When we pass a police officer we say ‘hello, how are you doing?’ We always make sure to give the most respect that we can to anybody and everybody around us.
Check out Limitless 5’s YouTube Page to hear “Let’s Do It Again (Obama 2012).”
And if you want to buy a shirt, head over to Limitless 5’s site LetsDoItAgainObama.
