A onetime foulmouthed white rapper remade as an icon of right-wing nation insurrection. An iconic disco-pop outfit with a crossover hit typically understood to be about homosexual cruising that has turn out to be a world sports-and-bar-mitzvah anthem.
These are the types of contradictory figures who’ve lengthy animated and energized American pop music, the artwork kind the place competing curiosity teams and inventive urges are within the closest quarters, and most definitely to collide in unanticipatedly productive methods. The stew of American pop is messy, the results of centuries of artistic crossover, keen and compelled and generally unpredictable.
So possibly it’s not a shock, then, that even onstage at President-elect Donald J. Trump’s Make America Nice Once more Victory Rally on Sunday afternoon on the Capital One Area — seemingly a spot inhospitable to those narratives of collaborative distinction — these tugs of warfare endured.
Within the speeches — from Mr. Trump and plenty of of his surrogates — there was nativism and isolationism and guarantees of document deportations.
And but for a celebration and motion constructed partially on exclusion and a marketing campaign marked at instances by race-baiting, there have been conspicuous overtures to variety and inclusion, and sly acknowledgments of the ability of the multiracial stew of American pop.
There was Child Rock, his voice pockmarked and highly effective, singing “All Summer season Lengthy,” his successful invocation of “Candy House Alabama,” earlier than placing on a pink Make America Nice Once more ball cap and taking a flip scratching on his D.J.’s turntable. In a video message in the course of the efficiency, Mr. Trump promised to Make America Rock Once more, interspersed with footage of Run-DMC songs.
Billy Ray Cyrus, who was billed as one of many performers on the rally however who wasn’t heard aside from sound checking, would have deepened this curious narrative as a former nation fairly boy rescued in late profession by working with a queer hip-hop newcomer, Lil Nas X, on “Previous City Highway.”
And naturally there have been Village Individuals, who carried out “Y.M.C.A.” on the rally’s conclusion with Mr. Trump behind them, shimmying and sometimes singing alongside.
Did the track’s origin story matter? It didn’t. (Victor Willis, the group’s frontman and sole remaining unique member, made headlines final month when he posted on social media that the track is “not likely a homosexual anthem.”)
However after all that is how Mr. Trump views music: as theme songs, battle songs, soundtracks for reminiscences greater than artistic endeavors. He leans towards anthems rinsed clear of that means, as long as they’re memorably sturdy. He walked onstage to Lee Greenwood serenading him with “God Bless the united statesA.,” as if accepting homecoming king coronation on the promenade.
The pre-rally soundtrack, aside from the occasional modern intruder — Bruno Mars’s “Versace on the Ground,” The Weeknd’s “Starboy” — skewed 4 to 5 many years previous. It was largely the sound of Studio 54 and its offshoots, wrung by layers of historical past and irony and post-history till nothing is left however the beat.
A lot of the audio system have been launched with sparkles of hard-rock guitar, as if to reassure (and energize) the bulk white crowd. However the messages they delivered have been in locations extra nuanced. Dana White, chief govt of Final Combating Championship, reminded the gang of Mr. Trump’s success with nonwhite voters, as did Mr. Trump himself in his speech, eager to color MAGA as a multiracial motion.
However the contradictions have been by no means removed from the floor. The Puerto Rican famous person Anuel AA embraced Mr. Trump, saying that he was onstage to talk “on behalf of all of the Spanish group” and describing the backlash he obtained for supporting Mr. Trump. Simply minutes later Stephen Miller, the Trump adviser, decried President Biden’s border coverage and Megyn Kelly, the previous Fox Information anchor, touted Fb and McDonald’s eliminating variety, fairness and inclusion initiatives.
It was the last word in having it each methods — slyly embracing the spoils of American variety whereas forcefully arguing in opposition to D.E.I. Utilizing the optics and sonics of integration as a delicate weapon in opposition to their very own furthering. The aim of the rally was meant to be clear, however the music steered a far messier — and nonetheless unresolved — reality beneath.
