Barack Obama's 2023 summer music playlist confirms Barack Obama still really likes Drake
Luke Combs' cover of Tracy Chapman's "Fast Car" also made the annual list from America's hottest 61-year-old DJ
America’s hippest 61-year-old DJ, Barack Obama, is up to his old tricks again, as the former president/current tastemaker has once again released his annual summer playlist, informing a weary nation of exactly what retired Emmy winners are jamming out to this July.
As is typical for Obama, the list is a mix of new and old music—perhaps best emphasized by the inclusion of Luke Combs’ chart-topping cover of Tracy Chapman’s beloved “Fast Car.” Similarly, Obama included both Otis Redding’s “(Sittin’ On) The Dock Of The Bay” and Burna Boy’s “Sittin’ On The Top Of The World,” encompassing more than 50 years of sittin’ on things in the process.
Elsewhere, it’s an expected mix of different flavors of Cool Dad musical cred; Janelle Monae makes the list, sitting comfortably between The Four Tops and the Pretenders; Drake—who Obama once endorsed to play him in a hypothetical biopic—pops up alongside J. Hus, while Ice Spice and nobigdyl share list space with Martha Reeves & The Vandellas. (Looking back at Obama’s lists from the last few years, Drake is the only artist to have appeared for the last three consecutively; not even Aretha Franklin managed that. Man loves Drizzy.)
And while we might poke some gentle fun at the former POTUS/current mixtape crafter, there is a certain comfort in seeing this lists roll out—on identical letterhead, no less!—every year. Part of Obama’s appeal was always the fact that there was some credibility to the idea of him listening to any of this stuff in his casual hours, even if we suspect that the lists themselves get at least lightly focus-tested for public consumption. (That being said: We still think it’s weird that you’d listen to the Combs cover of “Fast Car” when Chapman’s version is right there; at least Chapman has given her approval to Combs’ version of the song, issuing a statement recently in which she said “I’m happy for Luke and his success and grateful that new fans have found and embraced ‘Fast Car.’”)