Here’s a rap battle no one expected.
Far-right stalwart Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene tried to fire up her followers for the new GOP House majority by dropping a Monday tweet showing her strutting confidently in slow motion through the halls of Congress to the tune of Dr. Dre’s 1999 hit “Still D.R.E.” — only for the former N.W.A. mainstay to slap a copyright claim and get the video pulled.
“It’s time to begin … and they can’t stop what’s coming,” wrote the Georgia Republican, who played a crucial role in Rep. Kevin McCarthy winning the speaker’s gavel early Saturday after 15 rounds of voting.
Dr. Dre was not amused.
He told TMZ that he doesn’t license his music to politicians, “especially someone as divisive and hateful as this one.”
By Monday afternoon, Greene’s tweet bore the dreaded notice from Twitter that “This media has been disabled in response to a report by the copyright owner.”
Not to be outdone, Greene tweeted out a statement she gave to TMZ with the caption “The next episode ..” The lawmaker claimed she had been locked out of her account for posting “Still D.R.E.” without Dre’s permission, and explained why she played the video with music, but no lyrics.
“While I appreciate the creative chord progression,” Greene told the outlet, addressing the rapper, “I would never play your words of violence against women and police officers, and your glorification of the thug life and drugs.”
Greene’s video, which lasts about two minutes, begins with a shot of the US Capitol, then cuts to a sign outside her office that proclaims, “There are two genders: Male & Female ‘Trust the Science!’” before she walks out of her office door.
At that point, the music kicks in.
The camera follows Greene, with a wide smile on her face, as she claps her hands in glee and speaks to people who appear to be congressional staff.
Later the video switches to black-and-white as a voice can be heard saying, “She held up her phone and on the phone it said DT,” before showing McCarthy being cheered by the Republican conference as the final vote for speaker came through.
“Marjorie Taylor Greene raced down the aisle to take a selfie with Kevin McCarthy, which may have been his first act as speaker,” a voice on the video says as a beaming McCarthy, banging the gavel, begins his acceptance speech.
Greene was often pictured sitting beside McCarthy during the speaker votes — and in the process went from a fringe player who was removed from her committee assignments to the pinnacle of political power.
While Greene may have disavowed the lyrics to “Still D.R.E.,” they could work as a metaphor for her political rise.
“And even when I was close to defeat/ I rose to my feet/ My life’s like a soundtrack/ I wrote to the beat,” the words say.
“I bring the fire ’til you’re soaking in your seat/ It’s not a fluke, it’s been tried, I’m the truth,” they continue.
Before the video was pulled some Twitter users were left scratching their heads over MTG’s creative decision-making.
“I’ve always said that you are a freak and a fraud Marj. While this video is amusing, your non stop efforts to show your hatred for Democracy are not,” Fred Guttenberg, who lost his daughter Jaime in the 2018 Parkland, Fla., school shooting, wrote on Twitter.
“Whatever your bizarre statement means, you will always be a freak and a fraud,” he said.
Left-wing influencer JoJoFromJerz said the video had her in stitches.
“HAHAHAHAHAHAHA THIS IS REAL?!?!?? I AM SCREAMING LAUGHING LIKE I CANNOT BREATHE LAUGHING!!! YOU CRACK ME UP MARGE. IF THIS WERE SNL NO ONE WOULD KNOW THE DIFFERENCE. BRAVO,” she said in an all-caps posting.
For author John A. Daly, Greene’s video reminded him of “The Office.”
“This is like a Michael/Dwight video,” he wrote on Twitter, referring to the characters played by Steve Carell and Rainn Wilson on the NBC sitcom.
