Twice a year, former United States president Barack Obama puts out a playlist of songs from that year that he’s been listening to. Releasing these lists every half-year, one in July as a summer edition and one in December as a year-end edition, they sometimes include tracks that feel implausible for Obama to enjoy.
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With these outlandish inclusions to his lists, many believe Obama has an intern or assistant that makes the selections for him so he can seem hip or trendy. However, in a new interview conducted by comedian Hasan Minhaj, Obama set the record straight that he not only makes the playlists himself but listens to all of the songs on them.
“I do (make them myself)!” the 44th President exclaimed. “Listen. I am so glad that I have this opportunity. People, they believe the books and the movies (year-end lists that he also releases), but the playlists, they somehow think—and this is mostly coming from young people like you—somehow, y’all think you invented rock ‘n’ roll. You invented hip-hop. And so the fact that my lists are, you know, pretty incredible—people seem to think, well, he must’ve had some 20-year-old intern who was figuring out this latest cut. No, man! It’s on my iPad right now.”
In Obama’s most recent playlist from December 2022, he added niche songs like “American Teenager” by Ethel Cain and “Belize” by Danger Mouse, MF DOOM, and Black Thought. For other lists in recent memory, he also inserted songs by Migos, Lil Baby, Mitski, and DaBaby, all of whom can be hard to imagine for a man of Obama’s age and stature enjoying. But, he continued to insist to Minhaj that his selections were all sincere and authentic.
“Look, here’s the bottom line of my playlists and my book lists and my movie lists,” he said. “I am very scrupulous about making sure that this is stuff that I actually like. I will confess that there are times — on the playlists, on the music lists — where I will get suggestions. Because it’s not like I got time to be listening to music all the time. So typically, at the end of the year, what happens is folks will be like, ‘Man, you need to listen to this. This is good.’ But unless I’m actually listening to it, watching it, reading it, I won’t put it on there.”
Obama will likely be putting out another playlist at some point next month (July), as he usually does every summer. It will be interesting to see which artists and songs he decides to feature on his list, now that he knows the amount of scrutiny these decisions of his attract.
Check out Obama’s interview with Minhaj below.
Photo by ALEX EDELMAN/AFP via Getty Images
