In October 2020, a freshly COVID-free Donald Trump hoisted his fists into the air, reveling in his restoration onstage at a Florida political rally because the Village Individuals’s 1978 hit “Y.M.C.A.” performed to a sea of pink hats.
Although it was a celebratory second for Trump, his mid-pandemic strikes had been criticized by some—together with CNN’s Don Lemon, who said, “Irrespective of what number of instances he goes to rallies and dances to the Village Individuals…. He’s having enjoyable and dancing on the graves of 215,000 People. Dancing.”
Trump’s strikes had been additionally a center finger of types to the Village Individuals. The group has had various responses to Trump’s use of the track through the years. “Our music is all-inclusive and positively everyone seems to be entitled to do the ‘Y.M.C.A.’ dance, no matter their political affiliation,” the band initially wrote on Facebook in February 2020—but additionally added, “We’d want our music be stored out of politics.” By June, Victor Willis, one of many group’s unique members, had reversed course, writing that after Trump threatened to make use of army drive to cease protests after the police killing of George Floyd, he might “now not look the opposite means.”
However like different former Trump detractors, together with his personal VP, the Village Individuals has since acquiesced to the president-elect’s pull—even Willis. The group announced in a current Fb submit that it’s going to carry out at Trump’s upcoming second inauguration. (Others on the lineup embody nation star Carrie Underwood and a classical singer you’ve positively heard of named Christopher Macchio.)
“We all know this gained’t make a few of you content to listen to, nonetheless we imagine that music is to be carried out with out regard to politics,” learn the assertion. “Our track ‘Y.M.C.A.’ is a worldwide anthem that hopefully helps carry the nation collectively after a tumultuous and divided marketing campaign the place our most well-liked candidate misplaced. Due to this fact, we imagine it’s now time to carry the nation along with music.”
Willis himself soft-launched this pivot this previous December, telling Fox News, “In the event you had been to ask me immediately if the Village Individuals would carry out on the inauguration, I might in all probability say not as a result of we’d be involved about endorsement.” However then he added, “Nevertheless, as a result of the president-elect has completed a lot for ‘Y.M.C.A.’ and introduced a lot pleasure to so many individuals…if he had been to ask the Village Individuals to carry out the track stay for him, we’d have to significantly contemplate it.”
Trump, recognized to have a penchant for dated popular culture references, is a longtime devotee of the Village Individuals. And even earlier than his post-COVID bop to “Y.M.C.A.,” the track had been a staple at Trump’s rallies. He performed it through the weird 40-minute jam session that ended a city corridor in Pennsylvania this previous fall; per week earlier, the track even rang out at an occasion commemorating the one-year anniversary of Hamas’s lethal October 7, 2023, assault on Israel.
