2007 rap lyrics surface in House race
SUNY New Paltz official lands in hot water for his comments about the issue
KINGSTON, N.Y. » Democratic congressional candidate Antonio Delgado says it’s “disappointing” that Rep. John Faso and others have decided to make a campaign issue out of rap lyrics Delgado recorded more than a decade ago.
Faso, the first-term congressman in New York’s 19th Congressional District, says the lyrics — which include the N word and liken some of the Founding Fathers to white supremacists — are inappropriate.
“Mr. Delgado’s lyrics are offensive, troubling and inconsistent with the views of the people of the 19th District and America,” Faso, R-Kinderhook, said in a statement issued Wednesday. “Moreover, he makes broad-brush attacks on capitalism and free enterprise, and he uses derogatory terms about women.
“It’s his responsibility as a candidate to answer for the controversial views he expressed in his lyrics and whether he continues to hold these views today,” Faso added.
Delgado issued a statement later Wednesday that said, “It’s disappointing that John Faso and others have decided to focus on distractions by spreading fear, hatred and division. The values and principles of hard work, accountability and service that my parents instilled in me, and that I developed by growing up in this region, have always been my foundation.”
“My story wouldn’t be possible without those values,” he said.
Meanwhile, Gerald Benjamin, a friend of Faso’s and director of The Benjamin Center at SUNY New Paltz, has found himself ensnared in the controversy. He was quoted by The New York Times, in an article posted Tuesday about the rap controversy, as saying, “This is about culture and commonality with the district and its values.”
“Is a guy who makes a rap album the kind of guy who lives here in rural New York and reflects our lifestyle and values?” Benjamin, a former chairman of the Ulster County Legislature chairman and noted political analyst, is quoted by the Times as saying. “People like us, people in rural New York, we are not people who respond to this part of American culture.”
The 19th Congressional District comprises all of Ulster, Greene and Columbia counties; most of Dutchess County; and some or all of seven other counties. Faso is serving his first term as the district’s congressman.
Benjamin’s comments prompted a quick response from SUNY New Paltz President Donald Christian and Tanhena Pacheco Dunn, the college’s chief diversity officer.
In a letter to the college community, Christian and Dunn wrote that Benjamin’s comments “raise the specter of racism and marginalize members of our community, both of which are antithetical to our institutional values
of inclusivity and respect.”
“We spoke with the administrator who offered these quotes,” the letter states. “He regrets these comments and their impact on the institution and our community and recognizes that language matters.”
Still, the letter says, “we are disappointed that such language would come from a campus leader and an ambassador of the college and reaffirm that the quotes do not reflect our institutional values of inclusivity and respect.”
Benjamin, in a statement emailed to the Freeman late Wednesday afternoon, said he was “very sorry for any unintended distress caused by my remarks in yesterday’s NY Times interview. ... These remarks have been condemned as racist. I had no racist intent but understand the impact of those remarks, and regret having made them.”
“I sought to make two points in this interview,” Benjamin wrote. “The first was that race is never irrelevant to American politics, and that this is especially the case when an AfricanAmerican candidate is running against a white candidate in a largely white district. The second was that the Republican use of his (Delgado’s) background as a rap artist was an attempt to open a cultural gap between Mr. Delgado and the majority of the district’s population.
“I made these points badly. My remarks were insufficiently precise, my points poorly articulated, and my language very insensitive
and therefore subject to multiple interpretations,” Benjamin added. “I particularly regret the casual use of the phrase ‘people like us’ to describe rural upstate New Yorkers. This language is over general, exclusionary and, I see in retrospect, evokes racist connotations.”
The music at the heart of the controversy is from a 2007 rap album Delgado recorded under the pseudonym AD the Voice.
Some of the lyrics are critical of racial inequality and include frequent use of the N word.
The dust-up first was reported by the New York Post earlier this month and has been picked up by other media since then.
According to the Post story, a song called “N—— s” includes the lyrics “Look like we only goin’ from chains to cuffs, still n—— s, still locked up, stuck on stuff.”
In another song, “SOS,” Delgado is critical of the response to Hurricane Katrina, comparing the New Orleans Superdome, which was used as a shelter after
the 2005 storm, to a “slave ship,” and calling “poverty” the “purest form of terrorism.” The song adds, “Why the response wasn’t as fast as 9/11?” according to the Post story.
In another song, called “U Scared,” Delgado raps, “There is a war going on, n——, what the f—k is up?”
Also in his lyrics, Delgado — who grew up in Schenectady, is a Rhodes Scholar and now lives in Rhinebeck — criticizes some of the Founding Fathers as “dead presidents” who “believe in white supremacy.”
In the Times article, Delgao cited such rap artists as Kendrick Lamar, J. Cole and Lauryn Hill as inspirations.
“It was different contexts, different tactics, but same desires and same outcomes,” Delgado told the Times about his music. “Issues like income inequality, issues like gender equality, issues like the pollution of our environment and climate change — these are all issues that I talked about back then as an artist that I’m now talking about” as a
candidate.
Of Faso’s criticisms, according to the Times, Delgado said: “In his dated mindset, he thinks it’s accurate to suggest that if you’re black or if you’re of a certain race, you can’t be of this community. But I believe the community of people who are grounded in love and unity far outweigh the community of people he’s speaking to.”
Steve Greenfield, the Green Party candidate in the 19th Congressional District,
also denounced Faso’s comments.
“Congressman Faso has chosen — not as a late Hail Mary under sagging polls, but as his opening move — to weaponize a black man,” Greenfield said in an emailed statement. “I don’t know if it’s now (President Donald) Trump’s Republican Party in the 19th District, but I do know that that’s how John Faso has chosen to play it, from which I can only infer that that’s how he wants it.”