Yes, MAGA Rap is a Thing—and it’s “War Ready”
Political music is nothing new. Throughout human history, music has served as a creative mouthpiece for artists to transmit their perspectives, experiences, emotions, and opinions—including political views and advocacy—from one brain to many. From the joy and resilience of Black jazz during Jim Crow to Bob Marley’s revolutionary anticolonial reggae, music has frequently intersected with and made its mark on the political landscape.
Typically, the spheres of art and politics have a somewhat porous relationship, informing and nudging each other even as they maintain a polite distance. However, the MAGA movement has not been known to restrict itself to the realm of the conventional… enter the nascent genre of MAGA rap, a perplexing subculture where political ideology isn’t just an important feature of artistic expression—it is the genre’s defining characteristic and primary motivator.
Rapper Forgiato Blow is largely credited as the progenitor of the MAGA rap genre, which he defines as revolving around “freedom, faith, guns, and Trump.” The self-proclaimed “Mayor of MAGAville” is all in on everything Donald Trump—sporting a $40,000 ring emblazoned with “MAGA,” a Trump-themed wrapped Tesla cybertruck, and a solid gold Trump bust. When asked by Newsweek about what he admires so deeply about Trump, Blow said “he’s a gangster [...] a lot of times I think I like these people and then I meet them in person and I think ‘man I can't believe I've been looking up to you’ but Donald Trump was everything, plus more.”
Blow has been rapping about Trump since 2016 when he released his debut song, “Silver Spoon.” Since then, his music and videos have been supportive of right-wing figures and groups, including Roger Stone, Matt Gaetz, Marjorie Taylor Greene, and the Proud Boys. His music frequently focuses on culture war topics; his most popular song, “Boycott Target,”, which accused Target of grooming children with pride merchandise, reached #1 on iTunes.
As Blow rose to popularity, so did the burgeoning genre of MAGA rap. Joined by the likes of Tom MacDonald and Jimmy Levy and supported by Trump’s ardent political following, Blow has cemented MAGA rap as a viable career for conservative artists. MAGA rap has recently drawn more and more mainstream attention: Blow and his entourage have been featured on Fox News, spoken at the RNC, and headlined profiles in the Wall Street Journal and the New York Times, albeit with varying degrees of positive coverage.
Slowing the ascent of the genre is the criticism, among those outside of the Trump world, that MAGA rap indulges and promotes racist, homophobic, and transphobic messaging. From the excessively violent anti-DEI rhetoric invoked by songs such as MacDonald’s “Race War,” Blow’s “War Ready,” and Tyson’s James’s “Rittenhouse” (a reference to Kyle Rittenhouse, a Trump supporter who has gained national notoriety for the killings of three protesters at a Black Lives Matter demonstration), and a profusion of questionable lyrics such as “You call me a racist, yeah, alright, I’m not ashamed because I’m white,” the sentiment is not unfounded. MAGA Rappers tend to disdain rap’s roots in Black culture, which is reflected in their songs. In particular, MacDonald’s lyrics frequently accuse Black rappers of degeneracy, with lyrics calling them out for “blowing money on strippers and cars,” “selling drugs,” “going to prison” and “turning sons into thugs or daughters into hoes.” Blow characterizes the pushback as persecution, and said “They’re still battling me [...] I’ve been banned everywhere on social media.”
Blow said his music at the moment is primarily focused on getting Trump reelected in November, an outcome he believes he “deserves” because he “got so constricted under Joe Biden.” Though his career to date has been rocky and surrounded by controversy, he tries to look on the bright side and remains fully dedicated to the MAGA movement: “I’ve had a lot of W's but I've got a lot of L’s [...] MAGA is cool, and my fans aren’t just teenage boys, my fans are 50-to-60-year-old people that probably never listened to rap music in their life, and I make them love rap music.”
It remains to be seen whether Blow’s radicalized rap converts and “gun totin’ patriots” will be able to swing the election for “Teflon Don” on November 5th, and if so, whether the MAGA rap genre can survive the full realization of its goals. Until that moment of triumph, Blow’s “Trump Train” won’t be hitting the brakes.
“I look at Trump like a rapper. A hustler. The man. Ballplayer. You know what I’m saying?” said Blow. “This is the fight every single day as a conservative.”
