Why Anderson .Paak, Fat Joe And More Think Celebrities Should Be Political

With early voting underway in some states and Election Day coming up in just over a week, many celebrities are using their platform to encourage fans to get involved. With anywhere from thousands to millions of people following them on social media, artists like Anderson .Paak and Fat Joe believe it’s important for them to speak out.

“They should put it in the music, they should speak on it, they should talk about it, they should do all of that,” .Paak told International Business Times at the 4th annual Tidal X Brooklyn benefit concert last week. “If you really feel some type of way about it, you got [to use] that platform.”

Fat Joe agreed, telling IBT at the event that celebrities “gotta speak for the voiceless [because] so many people out there that wanna scream, or they can scream and never get heard, so we should speak for them.”

As essential as Kaskade believes it is, as well, to use his platform to discuss politics and issues in society, he told IBT he thinks it’s important to “pick and choose when to speak, so that when I do, people are actually still paying attention.”

While some celebrities are very open about their political views, others choose not to vocalize their opinions or are apprehensive about doing so. The “Tints” singer believes it might be harder “for some celebrities that can’t be themselves or [if] they got some kind of other things they got going on that might [mess with] the money.” But for .Paak, if he thinks that “something’s messed up,” he’s going to speak up about it.

Moneybagg Yo shared with IBT that people in the spotlight have to be more cautious about what they say because there are so many people listening. He explained at the event, which supported criminal justice reform, that followers don’t always remember that they’re just people, too. “It’s crazy how they just won’t accept us for us,” he said. “Like, we human, too. People don’t even be thinking we human sometimes, so it be crazy.”

No matter how difficult it might seem for celebrities to use their loud voices to speak up and out, “Cold War” singer, Cautious Clay, thinks it’s important to do.

“I think that [it’s] always important to take a stance about things when it comes to politics and when it comes to the lives of people who are listening to [artists’] music,” he told IBT at the concert.

Singer DaniLeigh feels the same way because she knows celebrities have a lot of influence and can do a lot of good with that. “A lot of people follow what we say, in a sense, so it’s important to give back and always have a good reason for everything,” she told IBT.

Early voting is now open in some states, and Election Day is Nov. 6.