In addition to always trying to look cool, Sean “P. Diddy” Combs did something seemingly laudable a decade ago when he founded Citizen Change, “a national, non-partisan, and non-profit organization created to… make voting relevant to the young people and minorities who could rule the world if only they knew the power they possessed.”^[1]

The organization and it’s famed campaign slogan, “Vote or Die,” failed to get enough hip young voters to vote for its chosen presidential candidate in 2004, John Kerry, though it might have had some impact on the two elections of Barack Obama. Apparently, however, P. Diddy isn’t very happy with the result, because this week, he suddenly came out against voting, deeming it a scam:

“See the things [sic] that’s tricky about politics is there’s so much bullshit with it. We started Vote or Die and… and from the community we’re in, we’re not with hearing too much of the bullshit. So that’s why we get disenfranchised, [we’re] disconnected because nothing that they’re saying actually relates to us… So Vote or Die, and getting out the vote, those things [were] laid out there so people could understand about the process. We started Vote or Die, and the whole process was all full of shit. The whole shit is a scam.”^[2]

Another politically active musician, Frank Zappa, knew the whole shit was a scam way before Diddy found out. “This is a mess run by criminals,” Zappa once said of the American political system.^[3] Still, he held voter registration drives at all of his concerts, and recorded public service announcements with messages like: “If you’re 18 years old and you have not registered to vote, go do it. You need to pay attention to what these people in office are doing to your future. Register to vote, now.”^[4] He knew that casting ballots every four years wasn’t going to change much of anything, but he figured it might make the country a little less criminal.

Another famously political musician, John Lennon, never even bothered with the electoral system, preferring to protest instead. “I have never voted for anybody, anytime, ever,” Lennon said. “Even at my most so-called political. I have never registered and I never will. It’s going to make a lot of people upset, but that’s too bad. I’m with the majority. The majority don’t vote. Well, they know better.”^[5]

And now P. Diddy knows better, too.

Sources:

[1] PRNewsWire.com

[2] TheAntiMedia.org

[3] Home.Online.no

[4] YouTube.com

[5] Amazon.com