Obama in Music

So I originally intended to post this on Inauguration Day, but I got as caught up in that amazing event. 35 days later a lot of the cultural frenzy around Obama has died down. But not that tonight is his first address to Congress, I thought it would be a good time to get this out.

When Obama first came onto the scene as a political force to be reckoned with, a lot of artists took notice (and I guess a lot of "entrepreneurs" as well). We all know so well that famous poster. But I am such a music fan, I wanted to know where Obama was mentioned in such. So I went to AZLyrics and searched for "Obama". And there was certainly a trend. Most of the songs came from the hip-hop genre, my favorite. The references within the song also ranged. Some were not even relevant at all, and I ended up rating them with either a low, medium, or high relevance. (From the mention of the word Obama and how it relates to either the line, verse, or entire song). Here is the full list, and I have provided the lines for the highest relevance:

High

• Nas – "Black President"; It is my distinct honor, and privilege to introduce the next President of the United States - Barack Obama. (This entire song is pretty much about Obama).
  
• Young Jeezy – “My President”; Tell him I'm doin fine, Obama for mankind
  We ready for damn change so y'all let the man shine.
• Neil Young – “Looking for a Leader”; Someone walks among us And I hope he hears the call, And maybe it's a woman, Or a black man after all, Yeah maybe it's Obama.
• Common – “Changes”; What is change? change is Martin Luther King jr, Ghandi,
  Shakespeare, Tupac Shakur, Barack Obama.

Medium
Chamillionare – “My Dream”
Chamillionare – “The Evening News”
The Game – “Letter to the King”
Common – “The People”
Talib Kwali – “Say Something”
Jay-Z – “Jockin’ Jay-Z”
Lil Wayne – “Black Republicans”
Bow Wow – “Roc the Mic”
Chamillionare – “Put on for Houston”

Low
Three 6 Mafia – “Lolli Lolli”
Chammillionare – “Fire”
Karina – “Baby Baby”
Flobots – “The Rhythm Method”
Ghostface Killah – “Toney Sigel a.k.a. The Barrel Brothers"

There were two more songs that I didn't include. Every knows about will.i.am's two songs: "Yes We Can" and "It's A New Day". These songs were played so much during the media coverage surrounding Obama. Will.i.am was even on CNN multiple times during Inauguration Day. I was looking for other songs that didn't get as much coverage as these two.

But as I was listening to these, another song crossed my mind and I had to mention it here. My second favorite song of all time is by Tupac Shakur also called "Changes". Whenever I heard Obama mention "change" in his speeches during the campaign, I thought of this song. Now I am not going to put all the lyrics on this page because I've already made this a long post, but the most meaningful are these two:

"And although it seems heaven sent
We ain't ready, to see a black President, uhh"

I wonder how Tupac would feel about the wonderful accomplishment Obama made and the place in history it holds now?