First Prince, Now Queen: Another Artist Demands That Donald Trump Stop Using Their Music
Both Prince and Queen are now coming after Donald Trump.
Donald Trump’s re-election campaign was forced to take down a political ad that used the song “We Will Rock You” after the band Queen lodged a complaint, the latest instance of an artist taking action against Trump for using their music. The incident came just a few days after the estate for the late singer Prince called out Trump for the unauthorized use of one of his songs at a rally in the singer’s hometown.
As Slate reported, the publisher for the rock band Queen spoke out quickly after Trump tweeted a video clip showing him speaking at rallies with the iconic song playing in the background. A representative for the band told BuzzFeed News that the Trump campaign had not been authorized to use the song and that the band had already entered the process to prevent Trump from using any of the band’s music.
The matter appeared to be resolved quickly, with Trump’s tweet just days later showing that the media had been disabled.
As Slate noted, this is not the first time that Queen has called out Trump for using the band’s music. The song “We Are The Champions” was played at the 2016 Republican National Convention, drawing a complaint from the band that the use was not authorized.
The current incident comes just a few days after Donald Trump’s unauthorized use of the Prince song “Purple Rain” got him in hot water with the late singer’s estate. The song played at Trump’s rally this week in Minneapolis, Prince’s hometown. As WCCO reported, that use of the song brought an immediate reply from the singer’s estate, which used Prince’s official Twitter page to strike back.
The account noted that Prince’s estate had already told the Trump campaign to stop using his music and that the campaign agreed to put a stop to it.
“President Trump played Prince’s ‘Purple Rain’ tonight at a campaign event in Minneapolis despite confirming a year ago that the campaign would not use Prince’s music,” Thursday’s tweet read. The social media share also embedded an image of the reply from Trump’s campaign in 2018 promising to cease playing his music.
“The Prince Estate will never give permission to President Trump to use Prince’s songs.”
Donald Trump has gotten in trouble with other artists, including Guns N’ Roses frontman Axl Rose who attacked Trump on Twitter after one of the band’s songs was used for his campaign.
