She’s a hit: music stars quick to sing Kamala’s praises

Janelle Monae, John Legend and Charli XCX are among musicians who have publicly backed the Vice-President.

Last week, the British pop star Charli XCX posted on X that Kamala Harris “IS brat.”

The pop world has coalesced rapidly around Kamala Harris’s last-minute candidacy, with the US Vice-President receiving a boost from an online explosion of videos mixing her speeches with hit songs.

Janelle Monae, John Legend and Charli XCX are among musicians who have publicly backed Ms Harris. Hollywood endorsements have come from George Clooney, Viola Davis, Julia Louis-Dreyfus and Robert De Niro.

Even Beyonce, who is known to strictly guard her music, has agreed for the Harris campaign to use her song Freedom on the trail. The singer’s mother, Tina Knowles, quickly backed the now-presumptive Democrat nominee after President Joe Biden’s late-stage election exit.

Fans have been posting remixes of Ms Harris’s speeches and interviews with music by pop artists of the moment, including Charli XCX, Beyonce, Taylor Swift and Chappell Roan.

It helps that Ms Harris is eminently memeable; plenty of videos show her dancing with physical comedy bordering on slapstick. Celebrities have also got on board, capturing the marketing moment in the inextricably linked worlds of music and social media while also leaning into Ms Harris’s candidacy.

British artist Charli XCX in particular has seen her smash album “brat” become core to the early online Harris campaign. The “brat summer” meme was already alive and well before Ms Harris became associated with it.

Katy Perry pushed her Woman’s World while backing Kamala Harris. Picture: AFP

The trend emphasises an aesthetic and lifestyle inspired by Charli’s club album that offers a heavy dose of party-girl energy with undertones of youthful anxiety.

When fans began applying the inescapable lime-green “brat” filter to Harris images, Charli XCX voiced approval.

“Kamala IS brat,” the 31-year-old star posted, a sign-off the Harris campaign quickly embraced. In its transition from Mr Biden to Ms Harris, the campaign’s official X account also rebranded as brat-coded, with its cover photo mimicking the album’s neon-green – “Shrek-coloured,” as the internet likes to call it – and lo-resolution JPEG vibe.

Katy Perry, whose anthemic Roar was frequently played on Hillary Clinton’s 2016 campaign, also

. She posted a montage clip of Ms Harris with a remix of her song and the now famous “coconut tree” quote that’s also made the presidential hopeful an internet star. “It’s a woman’s world, and you’re lucky to be living in it,” sings Perry.

Cardi B reminded fans she had already said Ms Harris should replace Mr Biden, whom she supported in 2020 after initially backing Bernie Sanders.

Shortly after Mr Biden announced his withdrawal, the Bronx rapper reposted a video she’d made prior in which she says Ms Harris should be the Democratic flag-bearer.

“STOP PLAYING WIT ME!!!!” she wrote in her caption accompanying the clip, emphasising her self-proclaimed prescience.

“Told y’all Kamala should’ve been the 2024 candidate. Y’all be trying to play the Bronx education, baby this what I do.” Cardi B had previously indicated she wasn’t planning to vote when Mr Biden was the nominee – she did not make clear whether her stance had changed now that Ms Harris was the presumed candidate.

AFP