Vivek Ramaswamy Goes Viral After He's Filmed Rapping at the Iowa State Fair

By Maire Clayton August 13, 2023 at 10:04am

A current GOP presidential hopeful rapped along to a 2002 Eminem song at the 2023 Iowa State Fair in Des Moines on Saturday.

Say what?

The surprising and viral move came from entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy, and his impromptu jam session quickly began circulating around social media.

.@VivekGRamaswamy can rap and he breaks it down at the Iowa State Fair fireside chat pic.twitter.com/1O3gPfNC0c

— Hannah Demissie (@hannahdemissie) August 12, 2023

The moment came after Ramaswamy finished up a roughly 25-minute interview with Iowa Governor Kim Reynolds.

While signing hats and other items, Eminem’s classic “Lose Yourself” began to play, as the 38-year-old appeared pleased and did a quick fist bump in the air.

Ramaswamy continued to mingle with the crowd and started to sing the lyrics to the rap song, all the while posing for pics and shaking hands.

And that is when Ramaswamy’s mic got switched back to on, and the GOP hopeful was fully able to lose himself as he rapped along to the song.

Was Vivek Ramaswamy’s move desperate?

The almost one-minute mini-concert had some polarizing results on social media:

Vivek Ramaswamy raps. Based or cringe? pic.twitter.com/lHlp5qSPck

— Ian Miles Cheong (@stillgray) August 12, 2023

“He’s the man,” one X user wrote, on the platform previously known as Twitter.

He’s the man

— Crypto Savant 🎒🌌🏌🏻 (@215NFTS) August 12, 2023

Another felt the performance was “totally cringe, but it’s getting him attention, which is undoubtedly what he was hoping for.”

Totally cringe, but it’s getting him attention, which is undoubtedly what he was hoping for.

— APOCALYPSE MEOW (@meowweretalking) August 13, 2023

He’s having fun and the people are too…based. People love connection and this is one way to connect.

If you wanna judge by song selection or what presidential candidates should or shouldn’t do then many cringe.

— Danlyn Sensenig (@DanlynSensenig) August 13, 2023

“If he was literally freestyling his own stuff instead of Eminem I’d find it less cringe,” one noted as Ramaswamy has a past history with rap.

If he was literally freestyling his own stuff instead of Eminem I’d find it less cringe.

— Tom Lee (@tomlee80) August 12, 2023

While attending Harvard University, Ramaswamy was a libertarian rapper and had the stage name “Da Vek,” according to Politico.

He would often perform Eminem’s popular “Lose Yourself” on campus and spoke to the outlet about what made him identify with the rapper.

“I saw myself, honestly, making it big through American capitalism, and that’s why the Eminem story spoke to me,” Ramaswamy began.

“[Eminem’s] growing up in the trailers, with a single mom, and he wants to make it. He’s going to use the moment to do it … he seizes it and then he makes it happen, and I thought it was a pretty cool story,” the entrepreneur stated.

Ramaswamy elaborated that Eminem’s story spoke to him as the now-presidential hopeful came from immigrant parents and had a different background than most of his peers while in college.

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