How Lil Jon Became a Star of the Democratic National Convention

Lil Jon’s brief but exciting appearance at the Democratic National Convention, where he represented the state of Georgia during a musical roll call, may have seemed like a random treat to some viewers. In reality, it was the culmination of a weeks-old viral meme that linked the rapper to vice presidential candidate Tim Walz… and also a bookend to a 10-year get-out-the-vote effort by Lil Jon.

Surprising the DNC with a surprise performance from the hip-hop star was the brainchild of two women — political operative Ashley Spillane and Lil Jon’s longtime publicist Tamar Juda — who approached the White House and the Kamala Harris campaign with the idea of ​​capitalizing on the current meme at the convention. Campaign toppers responded with the idea of ​​incorporating Lil Jon into a musical roll call, as the lone live performer amid a playlist otherwise curated by DJ Cassidy. It turned out to be a bigger hit than they even expected.

The meme in question started when TikTokkers and others responded to Harris’ selection of Walz as her VP pick by transforming the lyrics of Lil Jon’s “Get Low” from “to the window, to the wall” to “to the window, to the Walz’. .” Spillane and Judah had collaborated on a Rock the Vote campaign ten years ago that involved changing the song’s lyrics another Lil Jon’s hit went from the eightfold platinum ‘Turn Down for What’ to ‘Turn Out for What’. So they got to work turning this viral piece into something that could actually excite voters… not to mention the delegates themselves. On the phone with Varietythey explained the story of how the moment came about.

Where does this start chronologically?

Ashley Spillaan: Really chronologically, Tamar, Jon and I were working on a Rock the Vote project in 2014. Tamar and I then became good friends and are both political junkies and hip-hop junkies, and always look forward to these cultural moments. Just organically on the internet, people who I think were excited about the new vice presidential candidate came up with these funny memes: “from the window to the Walz,” and so we immediately started texting each other about all the memes that came out. . The social media component of this blew up that way, so we connected to see what we could figure out together in real time. I asked Tamar if she thought Jon would be interested in doing something with it, and I said I’d check with the campaign to see what they thought, and we kind of approached those guys in parallel.

I first spoke with Colleen Loper at the White House, who put me in touch with Carla Frank, director of surrogate engagement for the campaign and now working for the Walz team. She immediately wrote back and said, ‘This would be great. Like, let’s make it happen.”

Tamar Judah: When I went back to Jon and said, “Hey, would you be interested if the DNC and the White House wanted to do something with you, considering that ‘from the windows to the Walz’ is now a viral moment, would you then want to do? are you open to that?”, he said, “Absolutely. Let’s come up with something that would have a big impact and be a lot of fun for everyone.”

Spillaan: So he was all in, and Tamar, Carla in the campaign and I went to work and mapped this out and made it happen.

Judah: I think this is a beautiful moment, in this day and age, to have all women bring this moment together for Kamala and her campaign, with the specific issues that are clearly on the ballot – and all women know what those issues are. It was definitely an honor for me to be a woman in the position I’m in and to be able to work on this with Ashley and the women at the DNC and the White House. And I know that Jon himself is extremely proud that it was women who made this happen at this moment.

Spillaan: Colleen Loper and Carla Frank, in the White House and during the campaign respectively, came up with the idea of ​​a roll call, and then we all worked together to figure out what he could do. That was a phone call where me and Tamar were talking about, okay, what if we brought back ‘Turn Out for What’? And Carla Frank said, “What if we had ‘Get Low’ in there too?” So it was a group of women who came up and kind of produced it.

Judah: For Jon, it was extremely important for him to also turn the words for “Get Low” around for a combination of Kamala Harris or VP Harris and Governor Walz. So Jon and I went through that together, and then he came up with exactly what he wanted to say. And then Jon said to me, “I definitely want to include ‘We’re not going back.’ That is very important to me. Because it is important, and part of the formulation Kamala uses.” So that was Jon’s call to include that as well. And as you can see, he also included it in his live performance. If you watch the clip, before he got to that chant of “VP Harris, Governor Walz” in “Get Low,” he got in there with “We’re not going back” in the transition between “Turn Out for What” in ‘Get Low’.

To prepare the music, Jon first pulled out “Turn Down for What.” I had him pull out the file from when he did it with Rock the Vote and it became “Turn Out for What.” He put that in there. He then switched to “Get Low” and put that into one file. He sent me the file and then I sent that file to DJ Cassidy.

We decided not to have Jon there (for the rehearsal) because the DNC made it clear that journalists and press would be there. So to keep it a secret, we sent Jon’s road manager, and Jon stayed behind. They just walked through the steps of it, like the physicality and blocking with the camera.

Lil Jon [via email]: I was actually first asked to DJ for the GA Delegates at their DNC party to start the week. My publicist, Tamar Juda, has a relationship with the DNC [through Ashley Spillane at Impactual] and they worked together on this topic, with me doing a sort of floor performance for the General Assembly roll call… I thought it would be pretty crazy, so I was all in! With “Turn Down For What,” I knew it was going to get that arena going, and it was really important to me to not only turn the words of “Get Low” to “VP Harris… Governor Walz,” but also to include Kamala Harris. ‘ slogan of “We’re not going back” in the performance. It was an honor to create an iconic moment.

Spillaan: I was the president of Rock the Vote in 2014 and we worked together on a 2014 midterm anthem. It was when “Turn Down for What” was the hit of the year everywhere. At Rock The Vote we talked about it and said, “What if he recorded this anthem as ‘Turn Out for What’ and we made it about the election?” And he was such a great contributor and focused on making sure we could get more people to the polls.

Judah: For that Rock the Vote campaign, Jon thought it was a great idea to replace it with “Turn Out for What,” so that (it’s about) whatever topic interests you, what makes you come out and vote. He loved how everything worked together seamlessly.

Spillaan: So when he brought that back to the convention, “Turn Out for What?”, it was a full-circle moment of ten years coming together. And I knew this political group of people was going to go crazy, and I think we were all eager and optimistic that it was going to be a big part of the night, but we’re more than happy that it became one of the most viral moments. of the whole week.

I worked for current Governor Walz in 2010. Now I have my own social impact consultancy, so we work with philanthropists, celebrities and corporations to drive community engagement. But then again, the many circular, overlapping friendships that have existed for ten or fifteen years are all women who conspired to make this happen — and women who are also, just to be clear, we’re all behind the scenes folks. So it was just very beautiful, incredibly fun to do together. These moments really matter. You know, I work in politics and in my life there are very few times when people who aren’t in politics get in touch about things in politics, and this was one of them where my phone went crazy. It’s really exciting when those things happen because you know you’re reaching the audience you want to reach, people we’re trying to excite and engage.

Judah: This really raised the level of what people might expect from roll calls in the future. Lil Jon’s team is extremely grateful to the DNC for entrusting him to follow through on this moment and make it a great one for them – and for hip-hop. We are very grateful that they entrusted that to Jon. Jon is a fixture in Atlanta, Georgia, and so I know it was one of the honors of his life to be a part of this and really represent Georgia.

Spillaan: I look forward to continuing to think with Tamar about what else we can do, and I’m ready to say we’ll find fun things to do together. You can bet on us.

Some examples of the viral “to the Walz” meme that inspired the convention appearance: