Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, a far-right conspiracy theorist, Qanon supporter, climate change denier, and a staunched Trump supporter used Dr. Dre’s music to bigger herself. A big mistake.
Celebrating Republican Rep. Kevin McCarthy elected as House Speaker, MTG posted a self-aggrandising video on Twitter, showing her moving down the Congress corridors in slo-mo and riding an elevator stately. A phone screen with a call from “DT” had an important role in this scenario. A soundtrack to this embarrassing display of bad taste was so infuriatingly out of place that it made the skin of his creator crawl. MTG was trotting on the screen along the “Still D.R.E.” intro.
So Dre’s lawyer, Howard King, sat down and wrote two letters: one to Twitter and another to MTG.
In the letter to Green, King didn’t hold back and allowed himself to be as deadly sarcastic as an angry lawyer can be. Having informed Mrs. Green that Andre Young, as the owner of the copyright in “Still D.R.E.” had never granted her permission to broadcast his music, neither he ever would, the lawyer continued:
One might expect that, as a member of Congress, you would have a passing familiarity with the laws of our country. It’s possible, though, that laws governing intellectual property are a little too arcane and insufficiently populist for you to really have spent much time on. We’re writing because we think an actual lawmaker should be making laws not breaking laws, especially those embodied in the constitution by the founding fathers.
In his turn, Dr. Dre released a statement informing that he is appalled not just by the casual copyright breach but also by the political beliefs of a perpetrator:
I don’t license my music to politicians, especially someone as divisive and hateful as this one.
Mrs. Greene responded brazenly saying, in fewer words, the following: I stole your music and your music is crap. She told TMZ when asked for a comment: “While I appreciate the creative chord progression, I would never play your words of violence against women and police officers, and your glorification of the thug life and drugs”.
Meanwhile, Twitter reacted to the latter from Dre’s lawyer. Not only the video has been taken down, but Green also found herself banned from the media platform. The situation is not new for her, though. Her Twitter account was temporarily suspended five times in 2021 alone. It was eventually permanently suspended for spreading COVID-19 vaccine misinformation, but reinstated in the infamous mass pardon after Elon Musk bought Twitter. Is it the end of the drama?
