It seems that rock ‘n’ roll is officially dead, according to conservatives – and Barack Obama is the one holding the smoking gun.
‘Barack Obama destroyed rock ‘n’ roll,’ Daily Wire Backstage host Jeremy Boreing griped Tuesday, speaking to panel of four other right-wing media personalities – which included Ben Shapiro – who all seemed to nod in agreement with the strange statement.
‘Rock ‘n’ roll was about white male angst, white male teenage angst,’ Boreing, 42, explains in the recording.
‘And then Barack Obama came along and said ‘young white men aren’t allowed to have angst.’
And then Barack Obama came along and said ‘young white men aren’t allowed to have angst.’
The bizarre declaration blaming the former president for the demise of the musical genre came towards the end of the 92-minute podcast – which featured a wide array of grievances from the five panelists – when the conversation suddenly shifted to the current state of rock music.
‘I think rock ‘n’ roll is a public health crisis in America,’ author and panelist Andrew Klavan, 67, joked, after Boreing had remarked that the head of the CDC considers gun violence a public health crisis in the US.
‘You’re still talking about rock ‘n’ roll as though Barack Obama didn’t happen,’ replies Boreing, with a deadpan demeanor.
‘Honestly, Barack Obama destroyed rock ‘n’ roll,’ he then asserts.
At this point, Michael Knowles, 30, another one of the panelists, nods emphatically in agreement.
‘There was rock ‘n’ roll, then there was Barack Obama, now there is no rock ‘n’ roll.’
‘Rock ‘n’ roll was about white male angst, white male teenage angst,’ Boreing adds in the video.
Shapiro, also a conservative, quickly chimed in, ‘and stealing tropes from better Black music,’ chuckling at the host’s assertion.
But Boreing pressed on with his theory.
‘And then Barack Obama came along and said “young white men aren’t allowed to have angst. They’re not allowed to basically express their dissatisfaction because they’re so toxic,”‘ he continued.
‘And, so, truly, rock ‘n’ roll just stopped.’
Sure enough, social media users did not seem to agree with Broeing’s take on the matter.
‘In 50 years we will be arguing with these white men’s grandchildren that Eminem did not invent rap and Justin Timberlake did not invent R&B,’ one Twitter user blasted.
‘I remember when Barack Obama called me on my cellphone in 2011 and told me I wasn’t allowed to have angst anymore,’ joked another user. ‘Worst day of my life.’
Chuck Berry is universally considered the first who put it all together: the country guitar licks, the rhythm and blues beat, and lyrics that spoke to a young generation.
In just a few songs, he drew a musical blueprint for what the world would soon know as rock & roll.