On July 13, former President and Republican nominee Donald Trump survived an assassination attempt while at a rally in Pennsylvania. One of the bullets fired towards him allegedly grazed his ear, leaving blood dripping down his face and the opportunity for a great photo-op.
Despite the severity of the situation, social media did what it does best— not take a single thing seriously. Instead of questioning the future of America, those online and in the rapper community debated if Trump had earned the gold star of street cred he’s wanted for years.
50 Cent Joins in on the Chaos
People online began immediately giving the incident theme music, choosing apt songs like Internet troll 50 Cent’s “Many Men (Wish Death).” The song was inspired by the rapper surviving after being shot nine times in 2000.
Obviously, there’s a major difference in injuries sustained between the two. Regardless, 50 Cent wanted to join the fun and performed the song with a picture of Trump’s head photoshopped onto his Get Rich or Die Tryin album cover.
“Trump gets shot and now I’m trending,” he said in a since-deleted Instagram post.
Trump’s Hip-Hop Ties
Trump has tried time and time again to tap into hip-hop culture. He’s been a constant reference in rap lyrics and even garnered praise for pardoning Kodak Black and Lil Wayne in 2021 during his last presidency.
For Lil Wayne, the pardon meant he didn’t have to face sentencing for pleading guilty to felony gun possession at the end of 2020. Trump pardoned Kodak Black for making false statements on Federal documents in an attempt to purchase firearms and commuted the remainder of his 46-month sentence. Kodak had served almost half of his sentence but the pardon freed him from jail.
There were two other hip-hop figures on the list of more than 140 pardons. Desiree Perez, the chief executive of Jay-Z’s Roc Nation, and Michael Harris, a founder of Death Row Records who was also freed from jail after serving 30 years for his sentence of conspiracy to commit first-degree murder.
Trump also tried to help A$AP Rocky when he was imprisoned in Sweden in 2019 for a street fight and then later charged with “assault causing actual bodily harm.” He got involved two weeks after the crime took place, posting on Twitter that he was working on bringing the rapper home after being told by Ye about the situation.
However, don’t add A$AP to the list of grateful rappers just yet. A$AP later said that Trump getting involved actually made the experience harder for him in the 2021 documentary Stockholm Syndrome.
“You want the most support you could and it’s like, ‘Oh, the president supports you.’ That felt good. ‘Cause for the most part, I don’t think he ever knows what’s going on in the urban communities…I was thankful for that, I can’t lie. I was also scared that it would jeopardize me being in [jail] longer. … In reality, I had no problem saying thank you to the man, especially if he helped me. That’s the narrative they pushin’: That he got me out. And he didn’t free me. If anything, he made it a little worse,” said A$AP.
Nevertheless, rappers like Sexyy Red and Waka Flocka Flame have been open about their support for the former President and his policies (as much as it has disgusted many of their fans).
Sexyy Red, in 2023, while on the This Past Weekend show, said that at first, Black people in the hood thought Trump “was racist, saying little shit against women,” but they’ve since changed their mind.
Her alleged boo Chief Keef also had positive words for Trump. He shared a photoshopped picture of Trump’s 2023 RICO arrest mugshot with him throwing up gang signs, stating that “my boy in dat bitchh bangin on dem folks…I know whatever deck he on he good in the hood for sure he finna run the prison. That boy finna be eating like a MF all da Blacks finna have my boy back.”
Rappers Sleepy Hallow and Sheff G even appeared at a Trump rally in 2023 to show their support. After Trump complimented Sheff’s grills, the rapper said “They [will] always whisper your accomplishments and shout your failures…Trump [is] going to shout the wins for all of us.”
Adding to the fact that he survived an assassination attempt and was found guilty in May for a hush-money case, some people think that Trump now has the street cred and the hip-hop support he always wanted.
Biden Disagrees With Trump’s Hip-Hop Ties
Before dropping out of the election, Biden shared his thoughts on whether Trump truly has the rap community’s vote. In an interview with Speedy Morman, released July 15, Morman asked Biden about Trump’s alleged allegiance to musical artists.
“Well, I am not sure that he has that allegiance, number one. Number two, if you look at his record in terms of African-Americans and minorities, it is abysmal the way he handled everything. But the answer is, I don’t know if he has hip-hop artists that are supportive of him. But I know that I got started in politics because of the African-American community,” he said during the interview.
Did Trump Boost His Street Cred?
Despite Biden’s opinions, social media took Trump’s assassination attempt and turned it into a meme, one of the quickest ways to boost (or destroy) anyone’s status these days. After the bullet allegedly grazed Trump, he lifted his bloody head and put a fist in the air with the American flag perfectly situated behind him as the crowd burst into applause—making for the perfect picture to crop, edit, or destroy.
The pictures began to inspire those online to create potential album covers and even compare the photo to some of the most iconic paintings of revolution, like Eugène Delacroix’s “Liberty Leading the People.”
Social media, instead of looking at the video of the attack and its aftermath, focused on how they thought the photo of Trump was cool. Users left comments responding to the picture that “the amount of Aura he’s radiating rn is off the charts” and that “those photos are going down in the history books.”
It is going to be interesting to see how the rap world reacts and treats Trump for the rest of the presidential race. He might not have the support of the entire rap community or really have true street cred. Nevertheless, he is still trending online due to the memes, the usual chaotic online discourse, and a few but notable rapper heavyweights giving Trump the stamp of approval post-assassination attempt.
