Live from Music Row Friday morning on The Tennessee Star Report with Michael Patrick Leahy – broadcast on Nashville’s Talk Radio 98.3 and 1510 WLAC weekdays from 5:00 a.m. to 8:00 a.m. – host Leahy welcomed MAGA Rapper Bryson Gray in studio to discuss his motivation to create a clean version of a Let’s Go Brandon rap song.
Leahy: A great treat for me and our listening audience, we are joined in studio by two of our very good and new friends, Bryson Gray. He is the pro-Trump rapper who has the number one iTunes hit Let’s Go Brandon. Good morning, Bryson!
Gray: What’s up, what’s up? Thank you for having me on again.
Leahy: We’re having fun here. And also Shakanna welcome. You are the significant other and you make sure the guy arrives on time and you get it all done. Shakanna good morning.
Leahy: Good morning. It’s great to see you. So, Bryson, we’re going to say, although you’ve been in this industry, for what, 15-20 years?
Gray:Â 15 years ago.
Leahy: 15 years. So you’ve been in this industry for 15 years?
Gray: Yes, sir.
Leahy: I, however, am going to claim that we discovered you.
Gray: Perfect.
Leahy: You okay with that?
Gray: I love it.
Leahy: So before you have this number one, Let’s Go Brandon hit, you were in studio with us, and we talked about what it’s like to be a pro-Trump rapper in a land where rappers usually aren’t considered to be pro-Trump or conservatives. And you told us back then that you’ve not been in a radio station in a studio for some time. Is that right?
Gray: Yes. Not like this. I got kicked out of all of those.
Leahy: (Laughter) We will not kick you out Bryson. We will not kick you out. Now, since that time, we had the infamous Let’s Go Brandon chant, which is a euphemism for Blank Joe Biden. We won’t say what blank is but think of the worst possible epithet.
That’s what it is. I think the Let’s Go Brandon chant began about a month ago or so when there was an NBC reporter interviewing this guy, Brandon, who won a NASCAR race, and the crowd was chanting Blank Joe Biden.
And she cleverly or propaganda-wise turned that phrase into Let’s Go Brandon. The folks on the right said, oh, that’s a clever way to say Blank Joe Biden. Tell us about how you decided you were going to do a song based upon Let’s Go Brandon.
Gray: Well, first, I want to thank the news reporter because I don’t curse. So I didn’t participate in the Blank Joe Biden chants. But Let’s Go Brandon, perfect for me. (Laughter)
Leahy: And by the way again. I am not at all somebody who pays attention to or understands rap music. But I will say there are, like, four versions of it out now.
Gray: Like eight.
Leahy: I can tell you, I’ve listened to four of them, but yours is by far the best because it’s clever.
Gray: Thank you.
Leahy: The words, the lyrics going, Shakanna is going yes. Very clever, very clever. So walk us through how out of the blue, you take this idea of Let’s Go Brandon, and turn it into the number one iTunes hit. This is really incredible.
Gray: I didn’t want to do it because there were already five or six. There are five or six Let’s Go Brandon’s out already. And there are four wrap versions out. And I don’t, like, attaching my creativity to trends. So I was like, I don’t want to do it.
Leahy: This is, like, our business philosophy here at The Tennessee Star. We have a technical term for stories that have been originated from others. And basically, I’ll give you a partial version of it.
We call it warmed over BS. When it’s somebody else’s. Somebody else has done the story and you’re just rewriting it. We don’t like to do that.
Gray: Yeah. It’s a trend. So of course, a million people are going to think about making a song for it. Of course, a million people are going to do, like, there are so many different styles of Let’s Go Brandon songs.
And I was like, I don’t know. But then a black conservative preacher, he was asking me to make one since the trend started. And I just said no for like, three weeks straight. (Chuckles) And then he messaged me after a few people released theirs, and he was like, bro, I can’t let my son listen to this.
Leahy: Because it’s bad stuff. That’s a very good point.
Gray: And me, personally, I don’t see the point of making a let’s Go Brandon song and cursing in it. That’s like, besides the point.
Leahy: Again, tip of the hat to you here the beauty of Let’s Go Brandon is it’s a clean version. Everybody knows it’s Blank Joe Biden. That’s the cleverness of it.
Gray: Yeah. So if you’re going to use profanity, just say the chant.
Leahy: You don’t have to say Let’s Go Brandon. You could say Blank Joe Biden, if you’re going to have profanity in that rap song right?
Gray: So that was the point. So then when he messaged me, of course, we told him about the kids, which is one of the main reasons I do it, period. When bring the kids involved and say, you want something, you’re so I can listen to that pretty much poured on my heartstrings.
And I was like, you know what, let’s do it. But if I do it, I’m going to do it my way. I don’t want the chant. I want to make a real song. I wanted to sound like a song. I want to put other artists on it that I like. And that’s what happened.
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Tune in weekdays from 5:00 – 8:00 a.m. to the Tennessee Star Report with Michael Patrick Leahy on Talk Radio 98.3 FM WLAC 1510. Listen online at iHeart Radio.
Photo “Bryson Gray” by Bryson Gray.
