Gay Musician Woodkid Demands Trump Stop Using His Music
The gay French musician keeps asking Donald Trump to stop using his LGBTQ anthem "Run Boy Run" at campaign rallies.
French singer-songwriter Woodkid is calling out Republican U.S. presidential nominee Donald Trump’s campaign for using his song “Run Boy Run” at rallies.
Woodkid, whose real name is Yoann Lemoine, previously criticized the campaign in December for releasing a two-minute video, featuring images of soldiers and anti-vaccine demonstrators alongside clips of Trump’s speeches, as the artist’s 2012 single plays in the background.
According to Euro News, the Trump campaign has played that video featuring Woodkid’s song, or sometimes just the song alone, at Trump’s rallies. And despite the artist’s objections, the Trump campaign re-released the video from December on Trump’s social media platform, Truth Social.
On August 7, Woodkid took to X to protest the campaign’s use of his music.
“Once again, I never authorized the use of my music on this @realDonaldTrump film,” he wrote.
Once again, I never gave permission for the use of my music on that @realDonaldTrump film.
Run Boy Run is a LGBT+ anthem wrote by me, a proud LGBT+ musician. How ironic.
Please react and don’t be complicit @UMusicFrance— WOODKID (@Woodkid) August 6, 2024
Woodkid also urged his label, Universal Music France, to “react and don’t be complicit” by allowing Trump’s use of the song to go unchallenged.
“Run Boy Run” is an anthem about transformation and the pursuit of personal freedom. It is about a misfit who must break free from rigid societal norms. Woodkid has previously said the song is inspired by his experiences as a gay man.
In 2016, Woodkid spoke out against anti-gay marriage demonstrators in France for playing the song during their rallies. “It’s the Middle Ages aspect of my music that must have appealed to them.”
Many U.S. politicians have cribbed songs from popular artists for use at their campaign rallies, usually by buying licensing packages from music rights organizations, which give them legal access to millions of songs. However, artists — and more importantly, their labels — do have the right to demand the music be removed from the list of available songs.
Several other artists have previously blasted the Trump campaign for using their music without permission, including Adele, Rihanna, The White Stripes, Creedence Clearwater Revival, The Rolling Stones, Aerosmith’s Steven Tyler, Pharrell Williams, Bruce Springsteen, Linkin Park, and Elton John. All have either demanded the Trump campaign stop using their music without permission or disavowed the use of their songs at pro-Trump rallies.
As Euro News notes, the estates of Leonard Cohen, Beatles guitarist George Harrison, Sinéad O’Connor, Isaac Hayes, Prince, Tom Petty, and Luciano Pavarotti have also objected to the campaign’s use of the artists’ music for campaign rallies.
In 2020, Victor Willis, the lead singer of the disco-era group the Village People asked the then-president to stop playing the group’s songs “Macho Man” and “Y.M.C.A.” in protest of his threat to use the U.S. military to shut down protests against racism and police brutality, including those organized by the Black Lives Matter movement.
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