August 25, 2019

Barack and Michelle Released Their Summer Playlist. It’s Very Fun Watching Musicians Freak Out About It.

“I AM NOT OK!!!!!!!!!!”

Ron Sachs/CNP via ZUMA WIRE

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While the world feels upside down, we all need a moment to pause and see to what Barack and Michelle are listening to—and to see how much our own playlists and coolness stack up. The former president tweeted a summer playlist on Saturday, a list of 44 songs (a nod to Obama being 44th president of the United States). It includes a wide variety of genres and moods, from Stevie Wonder and the ’60s classic “Brown Eyed Girl” to one of the biggest songs of 2019, Lil Nas X’s “Old Town Road,” and “Too Good” by Drake featuring Rihanna. 

Some of the artists freaked out in response—and rightly so, because being on the Obama’s radar is pretty awesome.

Here are a few of the best reactions:

1. The feel good song “Juice” from Mother Jones favorite Lizzo was #6 on the list and coincidentally, minutes before she knew that, she had tweeted about having proudly voted for Obama.

Later when someone tweeted at Lizzo saying, “‘Juice’ is No. 6 — someone check on Lizzo,” she responded with the most excited tweet yet from an artist featured on the list: “I AM NOT OK!!!!!!!!!!”

2. Pop favorite Maggie Rogers posted a selfie on Instagram screaming a very high pitch “Oh my God!” and writing that she was interrupting her vacation to post about the news that she was on Obama’s list with her single “Burning.”

3. Reggaeton superstar J. Balvin posted an Instagram story with an image of the list and excited gifs of him and Rosalia who are featured for their single “Con Altura.” 

4. Lil NasX tweeted a photoshopped image of Obama’s head on his body, celebrating the former president for putting “Old Town Road” as #40. 

5. Finally, rapper 2 Chainz expressed heartfelt appreciation for the former president’s shoutout for “It’s a Vibe.”

Obama’s list was just a “sampling of what Michelle and I have been listening to,” he wrote. “Some new, some old, some fast some slow.” And of course it wouldn’t be an Obama playlist without his friends Beyoncé and Jay-Z making an appearance more than once.

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WHO DOESN’T LOVE A POSITIVE STORY—OR TWO?

“Great journalism really does make a difference in this world: it can even save kids.”

That’s what a civil rights lawyer wrote to Julia Lurie, the day after her major investigation into a psychiatric hospital chain that uses foster children as “cash cows” published, letting her know he was using her findings that same day in a hearing to keep a child out of one of the facilities we investigated.

That’s awesome. As is the fact that Julia, who spent a full year reporting this challenging story, promptly heard from a Senate committee that will use her work in their own investigation of Universal Health Services. There’s no doubt her revelations will continue to have a big impact in the months and years to come.

Like another story about Mother Jones’ real-world impact.

This one, a multiyear investigation, published in 2021, exposed conditions in sugar work camps in the Dominican Republic owned by Central Romana—the conglomerate behind brands like C&H and Domino, whose product ends up in our Hershey bars and other sweets. A year ago, the Biden administration banned sugar imports from Central Romana. And just recently, we learned of a previously undisclosed investigation from the Department of Homeland Security, looking into working conditions at Central Romana. How big of a deal is this?

“This could be the first time a corporation would be held criminally liable for forced labor in their own supply chains,” according to a retired special agent we talked to.

Wow.

And it is only because Mother Jones is funded primarily by donations from readers that we can mount ambitious, yearlong—or more—investigations like these two stories that are making waves.

About that: It’s unfathomably hard in the news business right now, and we came up about $28,000 short during our recent fall fundraising campaign. We simply have to make that up soon to avoid falling further behind than can be made up for, or needing to somehow trim $1 million from our budget, like happened last year.

If you can, please support the reporting you get from Mother Jones—that exists to make a difference, not a profit—with a donation of any amount today. We need more donations than normal to come in from this specific blurb to help close our funding gap before it gets any bigger.

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