Forget about it: The Republican politician Dr Dre got banned from X
Dr Dre is a highly respected musician with a lot of power and money. His music from The Chronic to 2001 is beloved by many and, as such, even if you have a great deal of authority in Congress, it is quite hard to disrespect him.
That said, one person who felt his wrath is Republican Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia, who last year used one of Dre’s songs in a video celebrating her re-election to Congress. Unfortunately, her decision to try and co-opt Dre’s music for her right-wing political cause led to her losing access to her X account.
Marjorie Taylor-Greene has been quite a controversial figure in Congress and is a polarising individual for many Americans. Unfortunately, Dre was not a massive fan of Greene or her rhetoric. For her video, the politician decided to use the instrumental from Dr. Dre’s ‘Still D.R.E.’, a beloved hit from his multi-platinum 1999 sophomore album 2001 that she somewhat desecrated.
As soon as the video was released, the producer’s legal team quickly issued Greene a cease-and-desist notice for using the song without permission, leading to the representative being temporarily suspended and locked out of her X (formerly Twitter) account.
A statement from Dre released shortly after the Georgia representative’s politician’s suspension read, “I don’t license my music to politicians, especially someone as divisive and hateful as this one” — a scathing assessment of Greene.
According to Dr Dre’s legal team, she was removed for “wrongfully exploiting [Dre’s] work through the various social media outlets to promote your divisive and hateful political agenda.”
A longer statement given to Newsweek continued, “Mr. Young has not, and will never, grant you permission to broadcast or disseminate any of his music. One might expect that, as a member of Congress, you would have a passing familiarity with the laws of our country. It’s possible, though, that laws governing intellectual property are a little too arcane and insufficiently populist for you to really have spent much time on.”
It fiercely added, “We’re writing because we think an actual lawmaker should be making laws, not breaking laws, especially those embodied in the constitution by the founding fathers.”
“The United States Copyright Act says a lot of things, but one of the things it says is that you can’t use someone else’s song for your political campaign promotions unless you get permission from the owner of the copyright in the song, a step you failed to take,” the statement added. “Demand is hereby made that you cease and desist from any further unauthorized use of Andre Young’s music.”
Dr Dre is not the only figure who has stopped his music being used to promote the Republican Party. Last year, Eminem hit businessman Vivek Ramaswamy with legal action for using his legendary 2002 song ‘Lose Yourself’ as part of his campaign while he was touring the US as candidate in the Republican Party presidential primaries.