(APN) ATLANTA -- "Vote for Miss Angela," the rap song, available at www.angelasos06.com, has been playing on radio stations and personal computers across the nation after a recent explosion of interest. What is the idea behind a 13 year old rapping for Angela Moore, Georgia's potentially first Black Secretary of State? What controversy has resulted?
"We had naysayers who tell me I should take it off my site, that I should be ashamed, to put something up there that shows ethnicity," Angela Moore said. "Then I'd better take my picture down too because I'm ethnic as well."
Atlanta Progressive News has interviewed both "Miss Angela" and her young rapper, Pootah, to explore the matter.
The rap song has existed for several months, but was released by the campaign several weeks ago. The song is both catchy and campy. Suddenly, in recent days, the mainstream media has taken notice, with a flurry of radio and newspaper interviews, Angela Moore, who says she is foxy-forty-something, told Atlanta Progressive News.
Young rapper Pootah said he was excited about empowering youth to be politically engaged, adding the most concerning issue to him is gay marriage. "People don't need to be with the same sex. They need to be with the opposite sex," Keenan Mathews, aka Pootah, 13, said.
Angela Moore said Pootah's comments did not represent her political platform, adding that if she were a legislator [she's not; she's running for Secretary of State], she would actually support gay marriage.
Meanwhile, political gossip blog Wonkette took note of the rap, which they had good things to say about, while pointing out a grammatical error on Moore's website, where a card advertisement says Moore will work to "protect disenfranchisement" of voters.
Angela Moore said it is possible someone hacked into her campaign website, adding the website was hacked into two weeks ago when someone created email addresses from it and started sending spam emails from it. The version on the website is completely different from what was in print and was approved by her campaign staff, she said.
>But back to the rap.
Mathews met Moore when he performed at the Georgia Railroad Depot. "She wanted me to do a rap. I asked my mom what was the importance of voting. She gave me some ideas. I went on the computer," and did research, he said.
"I found out that people wanted to be treated equally," he said.
"I went to my producer and we went in the studio and did Vote for Miss Angela."
"This is my first time," being involved in politics, he said. "I'm getting a lot of attention for being on a political site."
"I like politicians because it's dealing with the world issues. I'm learning it as I go."
"When you first see her, you can tell she's someone special and I knew the first time I saw her, this is really big for the first Black Secretary of State," Mathews said.
Matthew Cardinale is Editor of Atlanta Progressive News. He has written previously for the Sun-Sentinel Newspaper, Shelterforce Magazine, The Advocate Magazine, The San Francisco Bay View, and the Berkeley Daily Planet Newspaper. He has also written for numerous online publications including OpEdNews, BuzzFlash, CommonDreams, AlterNet, RawStory, and TruthOut.
As I understand it, Georgia, along with New York, Maryland and seven other states are about to join Texas, Califorinia, Hawaii and New Mexico as minority majority states.
The entire US will come to this before mid-Century.
It is time for the masses to embrace this and to start figuring out how to make our political system bigger and finally color blind.
Robert Chapman
Lansing,New York
by
Robert Chapman (28 articles, 0 quicklinks, 2 diaries, 556 comments)
on Saturday, July 8, 2006 at 12:42:53 PM
1 comments
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