BC092 - DJ Cassidy, DNC 2024 Roll Call (United Center, Chicago, August 21)

Notes on a performance-cum-stunt that is surely the birth of more like it

So, a DJ set broke out in the middle of a presidential convention. Not all that long ago, I was plumping for national recognition of the DJ set as an art form. DJ Cassidy’s soundtrack to the fifty-state roll call—over an hour long, built both as backdrop and for call-and-response, carefully chosen and almost random, not strictly a dance set but one that provoked more than its share of movement, the first of its kind at the Democratic National Convention—is less a step in that direction than a cementing of a different kind of officialdom.

The DJ has become a pop culture totem in a general sense, has been one for a long time now. The person in the corner with the headphones behind a laptop and couple of circles to cue and scratch with, is as much a showbiz staple of our era as, oh, go-go dancers were to an earlier generation. This sort of cultural version of DJing isn’t typically what this space is for—but when it pops up in the most visible place imaginable, there’s no question that DJ culture has reached a new stratum, even at those times when it’s just another vector for classic rock.

Consider the venue. This is a political convention; spirits are high, and a DJ is there to maximize that. It’s a basketball arena; subtlety isn’t the point. The finery of DJ culture does not apply here. You wouldn’t want it. You want that after the basketball arena. There, you want the hits. You want the hits to hit you sideways. You want the hits you forgot. You want the hits that everybody else knows too—the hits everybody else forgot they knew, or didn’t realize they knew. DJ Cassidy’s state-to-state roundelay is exactly what this format does well.

What does Cassidy actually do as a DJ, here? Besides, you know, dance around like a dork? For starters, the selections were not haphazard. As he explained to David Browne in Rolling Stone (whose story, cards on table, provided the impetus to this post), there were near-infinite variables, but songs specifically about places that also had some real-world resonance within the state, or in particular with the DNC delegates, typically had the luck of the draw. Sometimes he went with titles that had less obvious but distinctive ties to their place: “The Romantics aren’t from South Dakota,” Cassidy told Browne, “but ‘What I Like About You’ was a song that had meaning to them and is a theme of theirs.”

This is followed, by the way, with one of the great bracketed notes: “[As for clearing the songs, Cassidy’s rep notes that ‘the convention handled those logistics.’]” This is not a small thing. I’ve said it before: the DJ set is, quite often, a fugitive format. It’s less of one now, though—the people who program the DJ-mix content for Apple Music, for example, are committed to preserving sets with proper apportioning, and official mix releases still exist. But when sets disappear from the web, many times it’s because of crackdowns from rights owners. This set is on the DNC YouTube page. It should be fine.

Basically, Cassidy has constructed largely voice-less edits of the tracks, played behind the proceedings. Of course Minnesota was going to be Prince (“1999,” sure); of course New Jersey was going to be Springsteen (oh, guess). Mostly, he was there to provide audio scenery for the delegates. Some of them clearly relished and made the most of their time. Colorado, where the brief speech began “we climb mountains” and finished “giddyap!” over “September”—lead vocal by Denver native Philip Bailey. That’s an example of a connection less obvious but still substantial. (The New York Times’ song roundup came in handy here, by the way.)

I quibble with Cassidy’s taste plenty—for Louisiana, he went with the insipid DJ Khaled instead of, I dunno, the rock-foundational Little Richard or Fats Domino, or the multiply-sampled Meters or the canonical rapper Lil Jon, not even to bring “Lady Marmalade” into it. But Cassidy clearly has the expertise; he’s worked with the DMC for a dozen years, and this performance-cum-stunt is surely the birth of more like it.

Sometimes the music and the speech created a kind of soaring tension—such as the Nebraska contingent celebrating its Native heritage over the soaring synth strings of Katy Perry’s “Firework” (@ 34:30) that makes the music sound far more eventful than the endless, bombastic song itself. This also happens near the four-minute mark, when the Alabama contingent reads “Letter from a County Jail” over Cassidy cutting up “Sweet Home Alabama.” Let’s see that conference panel. And also, I’m sorry, but “Sweet Home Alabama” is just a fucking jam and there’s nothing you can do about it.

That is not how I have ever once felt about “Carry on Wayward Son,” theme for and by Kansas (@ 23:00). Hearing their designated speaker, a Black woman, getting visibly and audibly pumped up by the riff transformed the song for me. I was actually grooving along to it, caught up by it—and I fucking hate “Carry on Wayward Son,” hated it long before I ever knew what classic rock was. It’s a song I’ve literally never liked, until that moment. Score one for the delegates. Some things remain steadfast, however: Even a voiceless DJ Khaled track still sucks. And I’m long past denying the clocklike workmanship of “Don’t Stop Believin’,” but the high-fret runs of that one really did work well as the underscore of excited civic leaders.

A lot of the surprise pleasures came from hip-hop: DJ Kool’s “Let Me Clear Me Throat” for D.C., Petey Pablo’s “Raise Up” for North Carolina, Jack Harlow’s “First Class,” the Louisville hip-hop track repping Kentucky—deeper cuts to one extent or another. They leavened the broad-stroke moments. But those, throughout the weekend, were the point. This is a political convention; it’s propaganda.

Is that the way I’m responding to Cassidy’s set, then? In a word, yes—I’m a lifelong Democrat, I was hooked all week, knowing that it’s showbiz and responding to that part of it critically, and to lots else critically, but also being genuinely moved, and shocked, by so much of what they were hammering. “Unions built the middle class” (Biden), abortion all over the place—I was agog. At times it was overwhelming. During Texas’s turn (“Texas Hold ’Em,” all too obviously), Kate Cox brings up the state’s abortion laws. We are not going back. Of course—a theme, the campaign slogan. Propaganda. But brute-force effective.

Speaking of which: Really, come on—Lil Jon showing up at the Democratic Convention?!

Video courtesy of that hip-hop bastion, the PBS NewsHour. In 2004, I knew people who wrote professionally about music that did not consider what Lil Jon did to be songs. Posterity knew better. It usually does.

Cassidy can’t just pick the same songs every four years. So, speculation can run rampant. Blogs posts can inspire betting pools, stirring the toxic inundation of sports gambling into music and politics coverage. Which Prince song will be chosen when and if Walz ascends in 2032—or, you never know, 2028? There’s surely justice waiting to happen for some of the iffier choices. Hearing him do it again should indeed be fun—in four more years, and not a second less.