YG and slain rapper Nipsey Hussle are cashing in on their collaborative 2016 anti-Trump song after the single climbed up to number one on iTunes, hit over a million streams, and tripled in sales during the just-ended 2020 US election.
Over the course of last week, several Joe Biden and Kamala Harris supporters turned to the single – titled FDT (F**k Donald Trump) – to lay bare their feelings about the 45th president of the United States. Following the confirmation of Biden as president-elect by major news outlets on Saturday, several videos of the song being played with people dancing to it while celebrating on the streets were also shared on social media.
In Atlanta, CNN broadcast a large crowd of hysteric and jubilant people repeating the song’s chorus while it was being played in the background.
According to Billboard, the single hit about 1,000 sales on Election Day, a 221% increase compared to its performance the day before and also saw a significant rise from 240,000 to 1,050,000 in on-demand streams around the same period.
The popular song was released by the Compton rapper prior to the 2016 presidential election which Trump won. A censored version of it was later added to his Still Brazy album after the Secret Service reportedly got in touch with his Def Jam label about the content.
“Secret Service hollered at the label,” the Go Loko rapper told TMZ at the time. “They asked if they could see the lyrics on my album to see if I’m talking about it on my album. ‘Cause I’m talking about it on my album, they gon’ try to take it off the shelf.”
The single, which peaked at number 50 on the Billboard Hot R&B/Hip-Hop Songs chart and No. 30 on Rap Digital Song Sales following its release, was named by Billboard as “one of the 100 songs that defined the 2010s.”
“Their potent rebuke of so-called ‘civility’ endures,” Billboard wrote about the California rappers. “Wherever he goes, the president is often greeted by a three-word, YG-penned script.”
YG told TMZ about the song in 2016: “We tryna touch the people, we tryna motivate all the young people to vote. Go really take your time out and vote on who should be in office ’cause it’s important, you feel me. If not, it could be all bad for us.”
Fast forward to 2020, it appears people did not only listen to the song this time around as they also went out to vote.
