The age-old battle between musicians and politicians rears its head

Eminem, aka The Real Slim Shady, has asked GOP presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy to stop using his music following the candidate’s performance of “Lose Yourself” at the Iowa State Fair earlier this month.

To which Ramaswamy and his camp replied: "Oh, wait, no way, you're kidding. He didn't just say what I think he did, did he?" (Actually though. But they did also say they’d comply.)

This isn’t the first time an artist has asked a politician to stop playing their music. Past examples include:

• Adele, Queen, Aerosmith, Phil Collins, the Rolling Stones, REM, and Neil Young have all at one point asked former President Donald Trump's campaign to stop playing their music.
• Both George Bush and Al Gore wanted to use Sting’s "Brand New Day" as their respective 2000 campaign theme song, but the artist objected.
• During former President Barack Obama’s 2008 campaign, Sam Moore of the R&B group Sam & Dave asked the politician not to use their song "Hold On, I'm Comin'."

Legally, US politicians don't always need direct permission from artists to play their music, the BBC reports. Campaigns can buy licensing packages from music rights organizations, which gives them legal access to more than 20 million songs for political rallies.

Artists can, however, remove their music from the list – but many object to its existence in the first place. More than 50 musicians, including Mick Jagger, Lorde, and Sia, signed an open letter in 2020 advocating for politicians to seek direct consent from artists to use their music in campaigns.