Eminem lends El-Sayed 'Not Afraid' for Election Day campaign ad
Published in Entertainment News
DETROIT — On Election Day, Abdul El-Sayed is "Not Afraid."
The Democratic candidate for U.S. Senate debuted a new political ad on Election Day, Tuesday, which uses Eminem's 2010 single "Not Afraid" as its soundtrack.
"Michigan. It's time. It's up to us to show the country what's possible," El-Sayed wrote in a social media post tied to the video. "The world is watching."
The 1-minute, 18-second election day ad runs clips from El-Sayed's campaign over Eminem's words from the self-empowerment track, which was a part of the rapper's "Recovery" album.
Some moments in the video take the song's lyrics very literally: footage of Donald Trump is shown over the lyrics "all those who look down on me," and then cuts to footage of El-Sayed on a balcony during the follow-up line, "I'm tearin' down your balcony."
Eminem doesn't often lend his music to political campaigns, but has done so before; "Lose Yourself" was used in a Joe Biden spot which debuted a day before the presidential election in 2020.
Eminem, who has long been associated with the political left, has not been particularly outspoken this election season, aside from his collaboration with Kid Rock — who has openly and outwardly criticized El-Sayed — which aims to put politics to the side and celebrate friendship and unity.
"He is my brother, not my political enemy," Eminem raps on the track, which is a part of Rock's new Christian album, "Halfway 2 Jesus," which was released in October.
In 2014, Eminem's publishers sued a New Zealand political party for using a track that sounded like "Lose Yourself" in a campaign ad, and was eventually awarded $415,000 for the dupe.
"Not Afraid" was the lead single off of "Recovery." It hit No. 1 on Billboard's Hot 100 singles chart and has earned more than 2.1 billion plays on YouTube and more than 1.3 billion streams on Spotify.
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