Rock the Vote aired their first Public Service Announcement featuring Madonna draped in an American flag 25 years ago this past week. The PSA dropped on MTV and essentially launched what is now commonly known as the US's largest and most effective non-profit, non-partisan voter empowerment organization that mashes-up music, art and culture with the political process. To celebrate their silver anniversary, Rock the Vote held a free concert in Washington, DC featuring the current members of 2 Live Crew (Wong Won and Mark "Brother Marquis" Ross), Darryl "DMC" McDaniels of Run DMC and DC-based rapper Lightshow.
As The Huffington Post reports, the organization was born out of a response to the arrest of 2 Live Crew members "violating a Florida prohibition against obscene, lewd performances." The arrest followed a federal ruling that the artists' lyrics were not protected by the First Amendment, citing the album As Nasty As They Wanna Be in particular. "Ultimately, a federal appeals court would overturn the ruling. But before that happened, a new initiative called on young people to protect their most basic rights through voting," The Huff Post explains. Soon after that first PSA in which Madonna raps "Dr. King, Malcolm X, freedom of speech is as good as sex," countless other artists joined the fight against censorship by urging the MTV voting block to register and vote. Watch the inaugural Rock the Vote PSA below.
The organization has continued to flourish over the past 25 years, and their work is far from done. Youth voters (usually meaning 18-35 year olds) still face a myriad of obstacles on the way to the polling booth, and new ID requirements have made it even more difficult for college students to vote. Meanwhile, the issues that Millennials care most about (including student loan debt, global climate change and reproductive rights just to name a few) are too easily ignored by candidates who don't recognized Millennials as an integral part of their constituency. The key to turning out the youth vote will be all about the fusion of music and politics as it always has been.
Rock the Vote's presence continues to rock as much as they continue to be a necessity. Leading up to the last presidential election in 2014, the group released their epic "Turn Out for What" PSA with Lil Jon and featuring Lena Dunham, Whoopi Goldberg, Natasha Lyonne, Fred Armisen, E.J. Johnson, Darren Criss, Sophia Bush, Ireland Baldwin, Devendra Banhart, Ioanna Gika and Gabriel Valenciano. Like every pop culture relic the organization has created over the years, "Turn Out for What" is still relevant today as we head into the 2016 presidential election season. Check out the video below.
