Rick Perry Launches Presidential Campaign With Rap Country Song
Former Texas Governor and Republican presidential hopeful Rick Perry entered the 2016 race with a fire remix of Colt Ford and the Pete Scobell Band’s rap-country hit “Answer to No One,” flipped — slightly — to espouse the candidate’s ultra-conservative beliefs.
A video of Perry strutting onstage to the song is available via Buzzfeed. While the new version cops the original chorus of “Answer to No One” verbatim, it features re-cooked rap verses about the right to own firearms and closing America’s borders.
“Rick Perry supporter, let’s protect our border,” the song starts. “To hell with anyone who don’t believe in the USA / Rick Perry all the way.” The second verse boasts the rhyme, “Give me my right to vote / My right to tote / The weapon of my choice / Don’t censor my voice.”
While governor, Perry signed into law SB 14, which requires voters to present a photo-ID at the polls and is considered the strictest of such laws in the country. One federal judge said it “creates an unconstitutional burden on the right to vote, [and] has an impermissible discriminatory effect against Hispanics and African-Americans.”
The song’s original chorus is equally blusterous, containing lines about being “raised up to stand my ground” and expressing a willingness to lose a job over a gun. It’s all in line with Perry’s political views, though the chorus’ final proclamation — “Except for the good Lord up above / I answer to no one” — is peculiar.
In 2011, as Perry began his first campaign for president, Rolling Stone‘s Matt Taibbi reported on the governor’s cozy relationship with billionaire donors like Harold Simmons. One of Perry’s key projects while governor was pushing through parts of a $175 billion privatization of Texas’ highway system. Despite being a massive government project rooted in eminent domain and the creation of new tolls— all antithetical to the ideals of his many Tea Party supporters — the program benefited several corporate firms that had donated hundreds of thousands of dollars to Perry and the Republican Governors association.