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How cool is our President?

Not only has he reformed a failing healthcare system, prevented an economic depression and saved the auto industry but, on top of that, he’s familiar with hip-hop princess Nicki Minaj.

Recently, the rap goddess released a track on Lil Wayne’s new mixtape declaring her support for Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney.

“I’m a republican voting for Mitt Romney, you lazy b—– are f—k— up the economy,” boasted the Queen Barb.

It didn’t sit well with many people and was quite ironic being that for one, she previously announced her support of Barack Obama and two, she’s not even registered to vote.

However, despite the criticism from media and fans, President Obama decided to use a different tone when he was asked to address her line. Being the king of cool, he kept a good sense of humor about it and jokingly told a radio station in Orlando that he didn’t know which one of Nicki’s personalities actually recorded the line, so he doesn’t take it too seriously:

“Yeah, I’m not sure that’s actually what happened. I think she had a song on there, a little rap that said that. But she likes to play different characters. So I don’t know what’s going on there.”

Obama went on to say that hip-hop is a genre both he and Michelle listen to and enjoy.

“Michelle and I, for folks of 50 or as she likes to point out close to 50, because she’s not 50 yet, we try to keep up so we’ve got a nice Hip Hop collection on our iPods.”

Nicki, in response, thanked the President in a tweet for understanding her sarcasm and lyrical intent which, like most of hip-hop, employs exaggerations, fantasies and antagonism to engage listeners.

But the biggest point here is the fact that the POTUS acknowledged Nicki Minaj. It’s not often, maybe even ever, that a high-ranking elected official is so in tune with pop culture and the hip-hop generation. Time and time again, Barack Obama has shown that he relates to us and hip through the comments he made about Kanye West and his admiration for Jay-Z. 

Put aside the fact that he became the leader of the free world and raked in a few milli over the last few years, he’s still the man that went through middle class struggles, like student debt and being raised in a single-parent home. Through hard work and determination, Obama was able to graduate from Harvard with the aid of loans and scholarships, and he then used his status to help working class families on the South Side of Chicago.  

One of the President’s strongest attributes is the fact that he can sit down and chat about a Knicks game, hit up a bar, and even talk about pop memes like Nicki Minaj.

In 2008 he became the antedote to Wall Street cronyism and Washington bureaucracy that moved our generation to the polls in record numbers. Before that many us didn’t get politics, nor do we take the time to understand the inner workings that govern our nation as it seemed like an old white guy was making decisions and was too far to hear or care about our hardships. Barack Obama changed that. He made us believe in a system that could work for us and in democracy.  He kept it cool, proved he had swagger and made sure our voice was heard.

I know he’s far from perfect, but at least we can say that he’s real!

Selena Hill