CNN
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Oliver Anthony continues to make his voice heard after becoming an overnight sensation thanks to his viral working-class anthem “Richmond’s North of Rich Men.”
A YouTube video Shared on Friday, the singer addressed her song at this week’s 2024 Republican presidential primary debate, saying it was “fun” because it was “a song written about people on that stage.”
“One of the things that bothered me was seeing people cover politics in this,” Anthony said. “It’s bad to see people in conservative news trying to identify with me, and I’m one of them. It hurts when some musicians and politicians act like we’re friends, fight the same fight here and try to push the same message.
Antony’s song about working hard and paying taxes to “waste (his) life” was accepted by conservatives.
Anthony, however, criticized both sides of the political spectrum in the video and said his ballad with Democratic President Joe Biden was “nothing.”
“It’s hard to get a message across about your political ideology or your beliefs about the world in three minutes, and change,” he said, “but I’d hate for that song to be weaponized.”
“I see the right wing trying to pass me off as one of their own, and I see the left wing trying to discredit me, and I think in retaliation. It has to stop,” he continued.
said Fox News anchor Bret Baier, who served as one of the debate moderators Politics In an interview published Friday, the network agreed to air the song during its debate.
“Rich Men North of Richmond” received millions of views on social media within a week and topped the Billboard Hot 100 chart.
About his sudden success and dealing with the “music industry,” Anthony noted “how dirty everything is” in Friday’s video. It’s worse than you think.
According to YouTube reaction videos to “Richmond’s North of Rich Men,” it’s not just conservative people, it’s a very diverse group of people, he said.
It has won praise from country stars such as Travis Tritt and Big & Rich’s Jon Rich – although it has drawn controversy for songs that refer to politicians as “obese”, welfare recipients as “milking” and “juvenile on an island”. .”
As for his personal politics, Anthony previously said in a separate video that he “sat pretty much in the middle aisle” and found fault with leaders on the left and right.
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