Goldwater, Reagan and ...Ludacris?
This past weekend, hip-hop artist Christopher Bridges came to Washington, D.C. to fundraise and lift awareness for his charitable organization. I’ve searched high and low, and after seeing him speak, I’m ecstatic to say that I've finally found a popular conservative rapper. Coincidentally, his stage name fits the reaction that most people have to this proposition – it’s Ludacris.
Popular rappers tend to rap about liberal issues. Take, for example, Kanye West’s hit single, Heard ‘Em Say: “Before you ask me to get a job today/can I at least get a raise on a minimum wage?” And don’t forget Will.I.Am’s remix, Yes We Can, which with nearly twenty million views arguably turned legions of young listeners into young Obama voters.
This is why it’s so refreshing to finally find a rapper who, while not identifying as a conservative, is acting and talking like one.
At a televised luncheon at the National Press Club on Friday, Ludacris started his speech by calling for a “paradigm shift” towards leadership “that is very basic and that starts with self.” Self-ownership and personal responsibility being conservative principles, this piqued my interest.
But wait, there’s more! In words that might well have come from the mouth of Newt Gingrich, Ludacris spoke about the inadequacies of the welfare state:
Our communities need fixing; our systems are badly broken. We can’t wait on the government, their institutions, social programming and policies alone to fix our communities. We have to look at other sources... people are looking in a different direction for philanthropic leadership.
With the substance (but perhaps not the style) of Mark Levin, Ludacris continued with a description of the work of his foundation. The rapper said:
We give a hand up; we don’t give a hand out. I only like to help people that want to help themselves, not people that are just going to... take advantage of the situation.
Some might say that charitable giving and volunteerism isn’t the exclusive domain of the right, and that may be true. But the value of charity is deeply ingrained within the principles of conservatism. Or so says Russell Kirk, who in 1993 wrote the following in a classic conservative manifesto, Ten Conservative Principles:
Conservatives uphold voluntary community, quite as they oppose involuntary collectivism. Although Americans have been attached strongly to privacy and private rights, they also have been a people conspicuous for a successful spirit of community... It is the performance of our duties in community that teaches us prudence and efficiency and charity.
Of course, Ludacris would never actually call himself a conservative – that would ruin him. So on Saturday night, while the 6th Annual Ludacris Foundation Dinner was being held at the Ronald Reagan Building in downtown D.C., comedian Joe Clair joked about how unsuitable it was to host Ludacris in a “Republican temple”:
Limbaugh’s gonna call you tonight. He is blogging right now. He can’t believe it. They are having a Ludacris Foundation dinner in a sacred building ... 'cause you know this is the Republican temple. When we’re not here, they have Republican church in here.
But who knows? Based on his comments at the National Press Club the day before, Luda could fit in quite well with the Republican Party. Conservative rappers, stand up!