US 2024 Election: Eminem cautions Republican candidate against using his music for campaign

American rapper Marshall Mathers, popularly known as Eminem, has warned Republican presidential hopeful, Vivek Ramaswamy to desist from using his music on his campaign trail ahead of the US 2024 presidential election.

The warning comes a few weeks after the Republican was captured singing along to Eminem’s Oscar-winning 2002 hit song “Lose Yourself” at the Iowa State Fair last month.

Ramaswamy, whose love for music started during his undergraduate days at Harvard University, used to rap under the stage name “Da Vek.”

Reacting to the unauthorised use of his songs in Ramaswamy’s campaign trail, Eminem, in a letter through BMI, warned the 38-year-old candidate not to use his music for political campaign.

BMI, a company that manages music rights, sent a letter to Ramaswamy’s campaign, stating that Eminem did not want his songs to be used in their campaign.

The letter also mentioned that the songs were removed from a licensing agreement between BMI and the campaign.

The letter, cited by Tribune Online via Deadline.com, reads, “This letter serves as notice to you under the BMI Music License for Political Entities or Organizations entered into by Broadcast Music, Inc. (“BMI”) and Vivek 2024 on May 24, 2023 (the “Agreement”) that BMI has received a communication from Marshall B. Mathers, III, professionally known as Eminem, objecting to the Vivek Ramaswamy campaign’s use of Eminem’s musical compositions (the “Eminem Works”) and requesting that BMI remove all Eminem Works from the Agreement.

“As such, pursuant to Paragraph 2(a) of the Agreement, this letter serves as notice that the Eminem Works are excluded from the Agreement effective immediately.

BMI will consider any performance of the Eminem Works by the Vivek 2024 campaign from this date forward to be a material breach of the Agreement for which BMI reserves all rights and remedies with respect thereto.”

This is, however, not the first time popular music artists have complained about their music being used for political campaigns without their approval. The likes of Rihanna, Adele, and Pharrell Williams, among others, have in the past lamented over the unauthorised use of their music for political campaigns.

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