Why rappers worship Trump They respect his hustle

On Tuesday in Los Angeles, A$AP Rocky left court a free man. The rapper, real name Rakim Mayers, was found not guilty of shooting his onetime collaborator A$AP Relli, in Hollywood in 2021, having been charged with two felony counts of assault with a deadly weapon. Defending him was Joe Tacopina, the same attorney who represented Donald Trump in lawsuits involving Stormy Daniels and E. Jean Carroll.

This isn’t the first time the Harlem-born rapper and the Queens-raised President have crossed paths. When Mayers was detained in Sweden in 2019, facing assault charges after a street brawl in Stockholm, help came from an unexpected quarter. At the urging of Kanye West and Kim Kardashian, Trump, then in the midst of his first term, dispatched his hostage affairs envoy to attend the trial and publicly pressured the Swedish government for the musician’s release. This curious episode exemplifies the complex, often contradictory relationship between the President and African-American pop culture, particularly the strange world of the “rap game”.

Never was this clearer than earlier this month, when Donald Trump became the first sitting president to attend a Super Bowl. The headline act for the coveted half-time show was West Coast rapper and Pulitzer Prize-winning wordsmith Kendrick Lamar. Playing to a US TV audience of 127 million, Lamar mixed jabs at rap rival Drake with political commentary in the form of a mocking cameo by Samuel L. Jackson dressed as Uncle Sam. The point of this, as The New York Times put it, was to “indict America and white hegemonic power”, and some have praised Lamar for the “hidden messages” aimed at America’s new Right-wing regime.

Before Lamar had paid his ironic homage, however, rap stars Snoop Dogg, Rick Ross, Soulja Boy and Nelly were derided by black Americans as “sellouts” for performing at a pre-inauguration event. In 2017, Snoop had called out his fellow black artists on social media, accusing anyone planning to perform at Trump’s first inauguration as an “Uncle Tom”. “I’m gonna roast the fuck outta you,” he warned eight years ago — yet here he was in 2025, happily performing for the President.

In recent decades, the rap game has become a global entertainment industry powerhouse that goes to the heart of the American Dream, with ex-crack dealer Jay-Z now worth an estimated $2.5 billion. There is therefore a peculiar irony in how Trump — arguably America’s most polarising political figure — was once hip-hop’s favourite billionaire, then fell out of love with black America, but is now bouncing back as the rap game’s King of Bling. This transformation, spanning the glittering excess of the Eighties to the present-day culture wars, offers a fascinating lens through which to examine America’s complex relationship with wealth, race and power.

The Obama years saw the Democrats solidify hip-hop’s meta-narrative of black empowerment as a political campaign weapon. From his bromance with Jay Z to hosting Nas at the White House, Obama’s hip-hopification of his party paved the way for rappers such as Megan Thee Stallion, Cardi B and Eminem to appear or perform at Kamala Harris’s rallies. But while liberal America, and much of the hip-hop community, has assailed Trump ever since he turned his back on the Democrat establishment in the early 2000s, their opprobrium counted for little at the polls. After all, the Trump rap brand has been decades in the making.

Long before he descended that golden escalator in 2015 to launch his presidential bid, Trump’s name rang out in countless rap lyrics — not as a political hate figure, but as a shorthand for wealth, ambition and ersatz status symbolism. The ultimate embodiment of capitalist success, in other words. Having become a prominent figure in Eighties New York City real estate and business circles, he was a natural reference point for NYC rappers such as the Beastie Boys, who namedrop him on “Johnny Ryall” from their 1989 album Paul’s Boutique.

Trump took off as a rap phenomenon in the Nineties, when he was mentioned in lyrics by the likes of Raekwon and Ice Cube, yet it was the 2000s which really cemented his status as a central hip-hop reference point. Lil Wayne vowed to “get money like Donald Trump”; Diddy rhapsodised about “that Bill Gates, Donald Trump, Bloomberg money”; Yung Joc boasted that “boys from the hood call me Black Donald Trump”. You get the picture.

These name-checks inevitably carry an element of braggadocio, but Trump takes such eulogising seriously. Indeed, his reputation among rappers has been a key part of his development as a near-mythic figure, above the mundanities of regular politicians. For instance, Mac Miller’s 2011 song “Donald Trump” makes the businessman a central metaphor with lines such as “Take over the world when I’m on my Donald Trump shit / Look at all this money, ain’t that some shit?”

Trump has frequently returned the favour. Aside from lending A$AP Rocky his support, in 2021 the President pardoned Lil Wayne, who was facing up to 10 years in prison; commuted Kodak Black’s sentence for making a false statement to buy a firearm; and pardoned the co-founder of legendary rap label Death Row Records, Michael “Harry-O” Harris, who served 32 years for attempted murder and drug trafficking.

On the face of it, though, these dynamics weren’t merely transactional. They represented a shift in American racial relations, through which successful black figures could access white power structures while simultaneously maintaining their cultural authenticity. Trump seemed to understand this intuitively, playing the role of the white businessman who was “comfortable” with black success in a way that many of his peers weren’t, and even making cameos in rap music videos as far back as 1989.

Trump’s own legal troubles have found an unexpected resonance with America’s black community, particularly within hip-hop culture. His numerous indictments and ongoing battles with the justice system share parallels with the experiences of numerous rap artists who have faced prosecution — from Meek Mill’s probation struggles to Young Thug’s RICO case. This shared experience of what Trump calls “prosecutorial persecution” has created an unusual form of cultural empathy among a growing number of black Americans who see him as an ally.

Trump’s rhetoric about a “rigged system” and claims of selective prosecution echo longstanding critiques from within hip-hop about the bias of the justice system. When he describes investigations as “witch hunts” and prosecutors as politically motivated, he’s employing language that resonates with communities long familiar with discriminatory law enforcement practices. But, crucially, Trump leverages this victimhood by also presenting himself as a strongman. As Ice Cube, an ex-gangsta rapper, said of Trump almost a decade ago: “Rich, powerful, do what you wanna do, say what you wanna say, be how you wanna be — that’s kind of been like the American dream.”

This parallel extends to specific cases. Trump’s criticism of Georgia prosecutors in his RICO case echoes complaints from Young Thug’s defenders. His attacks on the FBI’s Mar-a-Lago raid employ rhetoric similar to that used by hip-hop artists to critique law enforcement overreach. Even his social media posts about “prosecutorial misconduct” mirror the language used by rappers from Tupac to Jay-Z about systemic bias in the criminal justice system.

Trump’s political strategy has shown awareness of this unexpected alignment. His campaign’s outreach to black voters emphasised themes of systemic persecution and fighting back against establishment forces — mainstays in hip-hop culture. His social media posts often adopt the defiant stance of a man battling an unjust system, a pose familiar to anyone versed in hip-hop’s narrative traditions. And his frequent references to being a “political prisoner” and facing a “two-tiered justice system” resonate with communities which have long made similar arguments.

However, this alignment remains deeply complicated. Critics argue that comparing Trump’s legal troubles — stemming from allegations of election interference, classified document mishandling, and business fraud — to the systemic racism faced by black Americans in the criminal justice system is false equivalence at best and cynical manipulation at worst. Yet the cultural resonance persists, creating an uncomfortable convergence of narratives between unlikely bedfellows.

Of course, mainstream black America is still less than enamoured with Trump. For every Ice Cube, there are 100 Kendricks willing to stick the boot in. But the political implications of Trump’s cultural alignment with a subculture that has massive domestic and global reach are profound. His ability to position himself as a fellow traveller in the fight against systemic persecution — despite his vastly different circumstances — demonstrates the power of the rap game’s narrative in American political life. His ongoing legal troubles, rather than undermining his appeal for certain segments of the black community, reinforce it by creating an unexpected cultural solidarity. As Kanye West, Trump’s biggest hip-hop ally, vividly puts it in “So Appalled”: “Balding Donald Trump taking dollars from y’all.” What could be more gangsta than that?

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