By Mike DeBonis – Washington Post
This much we now know: There is at least one rapper out there capable of working affordable housing, homeless policy, and the Summer Youth Employment Program into his flow.
That would be none other than Stinky Dink, the hip-hop/go-go fusion MC still fondly remembered in this town for his 1991 hit “One Track Mind.”
He’s getting “politically raw” on his latest track, “Five for Fenty.” The chorus goes like this: “I got five for Fenty / I got five so vote with me / I got five for Fenty / he represent the whole D.C.”
Mayor Adrian Fenty‘s impresario-in-chief, Ron Moten, promises me he’ll have the track pumping across the city within weeks: “All the clubs, all the the DJs, all the events!” It’s the first of three pro-Fenty cuts he’s helped commission, paid for by the incumbent’s campaign. It joins other musical outreach efforts coordinated by Moten, including a series of go-go concerts.
Moten says Stinky Dink was an obvious choice to deliver the pro-Fenty message. “He’s a storyteller,” he says. “He’s been around us for a while. He knows everything the mayor’s done.”
And how. Some sample rhymes:
- “If you in the game, you can take it from a playa / the grass ain’t greener over there, it look Gray-er / use your brain when you choose a name / if you all about the city let my dude remain.”
- “A lot more sweat, less blood and tears / got the lowest murder rate in ’bout 40 years / 22,000 jobs for the young’uns / so they can do somethin’ constructive for the summer.”
- “Crime gone down like wheels on heels and the young’uns with the skills got football fields / gettin’ knowledge and they get to show college their skills / crime, youth, and education, that’s keepin’ it real.”
- “About to press my slacks then address the facts / you don’t mess with success, we can check the stats / I can put ’em in your face like aggressiveness / so you can see Vince Gray can’t mess with that / the city is bustlin’, we under construction / before Mayor Fenty, we wasn’t building up nothing / Southeast shinin’ like a fresh-cut diamond / now that take work, and work take grindin’.”
And as the chorus plays, actor and Backyard Band frontman Anwan “Big G” Glover can be heard calling out: “Four more years — let’s take ’em to the polls, cuz!”
Fenty isn’t the first mayoral candidate to commission a hip-hop track to promote his candidacy. In 2006, Michael A. Brown released “Get Down With Brown” to promote his youth-focused platform. It didn’t get him far — Brown dropped out shortly before the primary to endorse Linda Cropp.
Also, Fenty isn’t the first politician round these parts to get musical this election cycle. Let’s not forget “Servant of the People,” the campaign theme of Prince George’s County executive candidate Sam Dean. As if that were even possible.