Pubdate: Thu, 01 Oct 2015
Source: National Post (Canada)
Copyright: 2015 Canwest Publishing Inc.
Contact: http://drugsense.org/url/wEtbT4yU
Website: http://www.nationalpost.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/286
Author: Tristin Hopper
Page: A4
Referenced: Yung Liberalz - Stoners For Justin: http://mapinc.org/url/zJIKIqpZ

TRUDEAU SCORES WITH 'STONERS FOR JUSTIN'

In this daily feature until Election Day, the National Post captures 
a telling moment in time from the 2015 campaign trail.

Two teens in baggy, vintage Canada sweaters stroll through the 
nighttime streets of Montreal's Hochelaga neighbourhood.

"Stoners of the world, vote for Justin Trudeau," rapper y.not says 
against a solid hip-hop beat flecked with sampled quotes from Justin 
and Pierre Trudeau.

So goes the music video for Stoners for Justin, the latest song to 
hit a 2015 campaign that has turned out to be surprisingly musical.

The song is the creation of Yung Liberalz, a newly formed group 
comprising Quebec rappers y.not and x.shulz.

"Call me MSNBC , I got a Liberal bias," says y.not at video's end, 
while x.shulz can be seen at a Liberal rally, scoring a high-five 
from Justin Trudeau himself.

With lines like "your wife is hot, like my vaporizer," it's a bit too 
cheeky to be an outright Liberal endorsement. And unlike other 
hip-hop videos about smoking weed, this video conspicuously doesn't 
feature a single joint or dime bag.

It almost looks like a Conservative hoax. And indeed, that's what 
Yung Liberalz suspected people would think.

"It was kind of an experiment ... we thought it would be funny if the 
Conservatives started sharing it and saying, 'Oh, look at this, the 
potheads are on board with Justin Trudeau,' " said x.shulz, reached 
by phone from Montreal.

He asked the National Post not to use his real name, but x.shulz is a 
17-year-old high school student. On Tuesday, in fact, he was late for 
another interview after being held at school for detention.

Despite its name, Yung Liberalz is non-partisan, and the song is 
firmly in the realm of satire.

But despite the fact that Stoners for Justin is "trolling" the 
Liberal leader, in x.shulz's words, he says it's been met with 
uniform Liberal praise.

"The communications guy for the actual Young Liberals wrote to us and 
said, 'Everybody in Ottawa liked it, I listened to it 25 times,' " he 
said, adding that Liberal sources even approached the band to cut 
additional pro-Trudeau tracks.

The Liberal party denied that any such contact was made.

The concept for Stoners for Justin was prompted by the simple 
observation that while Justin Trudeau talked a big game about 
marijuana legalization prior to the election campaign, the Liberals 
have kept very quiet about pot since the writ was dropped.

"We thought that was funny, so we decided to roll with it," he said.

While the 2015 campaign has mercifully not seen any piano playing 
from Conservative leader Stephen Harper, it has been a remarkably 
melodic election.

Early on there was Harperman, an anti-Conservative folksong by Ottawa 
bureaucrat Tony Turner.

Conservative cabinet minister Maxime Bernier kicked off his 
re-election campaign with an old-timey radio jingle.

"He's a guy like us! A guy that knows us," says the anthem's peppy 
coed singers.

And, of course, Blue Rodeo emerged this week with Stealin' All My 
Dreams, an ode itemizing Tory legislative outrages.

As observers have noted, as compared to the United States, Canadian 
government are rarely the target of protest anthems.

Canadians do write political protest songs, to be sure, but they're 
usually directed at foreign leaders.

Neil Young wrote Ohio to blame the government of Richard Nixon for 
National Guard shootings at Kent State University. The Guess Who were 
similarly targeting U.S. "war machines" and "ghetto scenes" with 
American Woman.

Bruce Cockburn's If I Had a Rocket Launcher, meanwhile, was about 
shooting down the military helicopters of Guatemalan dictator Jose Rios Montt.
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MAP posted-by: Jay Bergstrom