The Democratic national convention in Chicago kicked off on Monday with a Kamala Harris campaign ad soundtracked by Beyoncé.
It’s not a new Beyoncé track just months after the release of Cowboy Carter, nor a tune from that country-inspired record, but Freedom, a driving song from her 2016 album, Lemonade, that’s become an officially licensed theme song for Harris. The song, which plays over almost all of the two-minute, 43-second ad, was also the subject of a cease-and-desist this week – not issued to the Harris campaign, but to Trump’s, which made the baffling decision to post their own, much shorter video on social media of Trump leaving an airplane, scored to the exact same song.
Was this supposed to be a nyah-nyah act of trolling? A perverse attempt for an elderly white man who almost certainly does not listen to Beyoncé to reclaim the meaning of a song by a Black woman that makes reference to breaking chains? Or just a particularly brazen form of the answer-copying that would be an even bigger part of the Trump brand if he were better at remembering how?
A rumor spread fire-quick on Thursday evening that Bey herself would be a last-minute surprise guest at the DNC, which would have felt like an even more stinging rebuke. It certainly would have synced up with the rest of the week’s pop song score; it was hard to tell whether it had been exclusively scored with artists that have issued cease-and-desist orders to the Trump campaign, or if it’s simply difficult to avoid using artists who have been forced to do so. After all, Beyoncé joins a list that includes the Beatles, the Rolling Stones, Rihanna, Prince, Queen, Tom Petty, Pharrell Williams, Neil Young, REM, Guns N’ Roses, Linkin Park, Bruce Springsteen, Creedence Clearwater Revival, Adele and Luciano Pavarotti, among others. Many of these artists had songs that played during the DNC roll call this week, and there were actual performances from Stevie Wonder, Jason Isbell, Pink and the Chicks.
Regardless, the rumors proved unfounded. Beyoncé did not materialize in person on Thursday. But there were other pop culture celebs populating the DNC with the distinct advantage of actually existing. That is to say that there were some Hollywood people actually participating in the event, for better or for worse, rather than appearing as lawsuit-courting AI-generated endorsements by proxy (as with the ex-president’s truly bizarre computer-fabricated Swifties for Trump) or, worse, Kevin Sorbo. This year, as has been the case for most of recent history, there are inarguably bigger A-list celebs on the Democrats’ roster, which sometimes strikes an awkward balance between wanting to show off Democrats’ star power and not wanting to appear wildly out of touch and saturated with unrelatable glamour.
To that end, the actual celeb speakers employed by the DNC clearly tried to summon more personal connections to the proceedings. Kerry Washington, best-known from the hit DC-set TV series Scandal and a consistent political activist, hosted the final night of the convention, leading a pronunciation guide to Harris’s first name. Kenan Thompson, whose Saturday Night Live career has, at this point, spanned four presidential administrations and may well add a fifth come January, did a bit about Project 2025, using his experience as a frequent host of fake gameshows and the implication that if an SNL cast member wasn’t affecting the show’s both-sides-y humor, it must be serious. Mindy Kaling, who hosted on night three, talked about bonding with Harris over their Indian mothers, and her experience filming a cooking video with the then senator.
The fact that Kaling’s peak popularity was probably during the Obama years was not lost on her – referenced obliquely with an opening age-lying joke: “For those of you who may not know me, I’m an incredibly famous gen-Z actress.” The DNC also coincided with a package from New York Magazine discussing the idea of Obamacore – culture that defined the Obama years and now, in many cases, is looked on as cringeworthy in its new-dawn optimism. This summer, many Democrats have experienced a throwback version of those good vibes, emanating from the sheer surprise and delight they felt over the ascent of Kamala Harris over the elderly, traditionalist Joe Biden – the joyful intoxication that it seemed like something was actually being done about their election concerns.
Of course, it’s been particularly easy in the 21st century to equate pop-culture consumption with that kind of decisive action. Maybe that – in concert with the throwback vibes – is why the DNC didn’t go all in on newer, younger, hipper Hollywood connections. Thompson is literally the oldest current SNL cast member they could have possibly snagged. (Then again, maybe he alone has the seniority to defy Lorne Michaels’ appearance of neutrality.) Kaling is busy behind the scenes and, as she mentioned in her hosting gig, a single mom, but isn’t really a current TV star. The Chicks and Pink aren’t wildly less nostalgic than Stevie Wonder for some segments of the audience.
There are countless logistical and strategic reasons that Beyoncé wouldn’t turn up to perform in Chicago. Maybe one – unlikely to be the top of the list, but not insubstantial, either – is that triumphantly trotting out a song from 2016 feels subservient to the moment in precisely the way that some of the supposed Obamacore touchstones do now. Kamala Harris may well be the future of the Democratic party, and the future president. But Beyoncé can’t be bound by term limits.
