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Barack Obama's 'Summer Playlist' Features Rakim, Lauryn Hill, The Foreign Exchange, and More

Barack Obama's 'Summer Playlist' Features Rakim, Lauryn Hill, The Foreign Exchange, and More

Published Tue, July 26, 2022 at 4:37 PM EDT

U.S. politics are in the toilet, with a recession looming, basic rights being stripped almost daily, and police shootings happening all over the country but former president Barack Obama just dropped his yearly Summer Playlist so at least there's that.

This year, the playlist is once again stacked with some great choices (seriously, who is curating this list?) including D'Angelo's all-time jam "Spanish Joint," The Internet's "Under Control," Wyclef and Lauryn Hill's "Guantanamera" and Kendrick Lamar's "Die Hard."

Phonte shared the list, which also includes his alt-soul group, The Foreign Exchange's "Better" featuring Eric Roberson and Shana Tucker.

Phonte, who is also one-half of Little Brother alongside Rapper Big Pooh, recently shared his thoughts with Rock the Bells about the legacy of Rakim and Eric B.'s classic Paid In Full (Rakim is also notably featured on the list with "When I B On the Mic").

"In terms of emceeing, Rakim? He's the Alpha and Omega," Phone said. "He's very much like a Richard Pryor, or like a J. Dilla in the sense that it's so hard to explain his importance to people who didn't know a world before him. Like, after 'Paid In Full' hit, it was just like, 'Bro, that's it.' Rakim was just a one-of-one. It's just how singular he was. Whenever people talk about top five MCs or whatever, you know, you can debate it, you can argue it a lot of different ways. But for me, Rakim will always sit at number one."

Of course, Obama's list also includes classics like Nina Simone's "Do I Move You? (Version II)" and Otis Redding's "I've Been Loving You." You can check it out above.

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