A day after Charley Crockett took shots at Jack White in a bizarre, strangely late-in-the-news-cycle comment on why he dropped Twin Temple from his tour more than a month ago, freeing them to open for White, White is firing back in the funniest way possible
… with a 1984 novelty rap song.
In July, the duo Twin Temple told the press Crockett fired them over their Satanic imagery (something he should have expected since they call their genre “Satanic Doo Wop” and have released recordings titled God Is Dead and Twin Temple Summon the Sacred Whore … Babalon.) The whole thing seemed so preposterous that White asked them to tour with him, something Crockett described as a political move, which was odd to him since he didn’t think the White Stripes engaged with politics (even though they surely did.) Enter John Wayne.
In his response to Crockett on Instagram, which used screen shots of Rolling Stone’s coverage of his comments, Jack wrote (in character): “I never said nothing about this young buck before but since he’s trying to drag me into this here rodeo again, here’s my official response to Cowboy Charley’s accusations.” Then he cut-and-pasted every word of Shawn Brown’s “Rappin’ Duke,” a goofy diss rap parodying Wayne’s deadpan, inexpressive voice. “What I do on your grave won’t pass for flowers either,” he says at one point before setting his sights on Run-DMC and Kurtis Blow.
But the reason White chose this song is likely a verse buried deep about how silly it was former actor and then-President Ronald Reagan to enter politics, suggesting that Crockett is naïve to think entertainers would stay out of politics. “Well, the first thing you know, Ron’s the President/The kinfolk said, ‘Ron, move away from there,'” go the lyrics, echoing the Beverly Hillbillies theme, “Said, ‘In the White House is where you wanna be’/So he loaded up the Lincoln, and he moved to D.C./Washington, that is.”
For his part, Crockett had accused White of using the press cycle to sell tickets. “I lost a lot of respect for him,” he said Tuesday. “I wonder why he wasn’t so outspoken back when he was in the White Stripes 20 something years ago. They purposely avoided political issues. Maybe he was worried about losing audience back when it was all on the line and he needed all the help he could get.” Now White is showing Crockett who has true grit.
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