{"id":1710,"date":"2026-07-31T19:30:22","date_gmt":"2026-07-31T19:30:22","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/valutednews.com\/?p=1710"},"modified":"2026-07-31T19:30:22","modified_gmt":"2026-07-31T19:30:22","slug":"right-wingers-claim-usaid-cuts-killed-rap-boosted-ella-langley","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/valutednews.com\/?p=1710","title":{"rendered":"Right-Wingers Claim USAID Cuts Killed Rap, Boosted Ella Langley"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Right-Wingers<\/div>

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\n\tElla Langley<\/a>\u2019s mournful country<\/a> ballad \u201cChoosin\u2019 Texas\u201d has broken record after record<\/a>, sitting atop national and international charts for weeks in a row. The Rolling Stone <\/em>pick for song of the summer<\/a> is an easy earworm about love, loss, and the Lone Star State, but some on the right are hearing their own favorite tune: a global conspiracy.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\tNo, the fever swamps of the right are not taking the stance that Langley is a nepo baby, or industry plant, or inflating her streams, \u2014 that would be too straightforward. Instead, over the past few weeks, some of the most prominent figures on the cultural right have spread conspiracies claiming that Langley\u2019s breakout hit was able to reach such heights because Elon Musk and DOGE defunded the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID<\/a>).\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\tThe conspiracy asserts that somehow, with its roughly $40 billion annual pre-Musk budget, USAID had been propping up the American rap<\/a> industry, to the detriment of other, more \u201cAmerican\u201d genres. They claim that by eliminating USAID \u2014 the now defunct international humanitarian aid agency \u2014 DOGE opened the doors for \u201cAmerican\u201d country artists to once again top the charts \u2014 as if rap music is not one of the most quintessentially American cultural creations in the nation\u2019s history.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\tTheir evidence? Well, the timing of the DOGE cuts coincides with a resurgence of country music\u2019s popularity on streaming charts. Maybe this seems plausible if you squint real hard, ignore actual streaming data, and also common sense. There\u2019s also a very blatant element of racism undergirding the whole thing.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\tIn May, far-right social media poster and would-be musician Steve Frassen put out a call<\/a> to his followers on social media. \u201cATTENTION PROUD WHITES:Everyone who hated rap in the 1990\u2019s and 2000\u2019s is VINDICATED,\u201d he wrote. \u201cRap isn\u2019t music.It\u2019s government PISS that was funded by USAID to dumb down Middle America. Take a victory lap, proud Whites who didn\u2019t fall for it!\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

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\n\tWithin weeks, the claim made it onto the podcast of the perpetually credulous Joe Rogan<\/a>, who spread it<\/a> to his millions of listeners. \u201cThere\u2019s some people that believe that gangsta rap when it came about in the 1980s [\u2026 was popularized by] some faction, the government, some faction, some intelligence agencies wanting to create more crime,\u201d Rogan said \u2014 referencing older, also debunked conspiracies.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cPeople are pointing out that right now is like one of the rare times where no rap music is on the charts, and they\u2019re saying, \u2018Well, how does this coincide with USAID [being defunded]?\u2019 Was USAID like actively promoting rap music?\u201d he went on. \u201cWas that one of the reasons why rap music was so possible? Popular? Is that real? That can\u2019t be real.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

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\n\tRogan\u2019s engagement with the conspiracy, which up until that point had been contained to the more extreme cesspools of social media, brought it to the front door of the right-wing creator economy.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\tPodcaster Tim Pool told his listeners<\/a> in late July that \u201cMaybe it was the USAID.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cRap music just vanished from the Billboard Top 40 for the first time in 35 years. Strange, a couple of months \u2014 so this would have been about four months after the shuttering of USAID \u2014 rap disappears from the Billboard Hot 100. Interesting,\u201d he added.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\tWhile Langley has held the top spot for an impressive 40 weeks, the genre has not \u201cdisappeared\u201d from the charts for that same amount of time, as some right wingers are claiming. On July 31, Drake, Lil Baby and Young Miami all held spots in the Top 20 of the Billboard Hot 100. Mac Miller, Ty Dolla $ign, Don Toliver, BabyChiefDoit, and a slew of other artists made the list.<\/p>\n

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\n\tPool, who seems to be stuck in the perpetually embittered aesthetic of a 2000s Hot Topic teen, went on to suggest that the Black Eyed Peas somehow benefited from this government intervention. \u201cI want you to think about that Oprah performance \u2014 the Black Eyed Peas are there \u2014 and there\u2019s a big crowd, and on camera, it looks like everybody loves this band, and the song is played on the radio, and it\u2019s put in the playlists, and you will listen to what they tell you to listen,\u201d Pool complained, possibly in reference to a 2009 Oprah show kickoff party<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\n\tClick slop creator Benny Johnson claimed<\/a> on Thursday that \u201clibtards\u201d had no response to Langley and were \u201cin shambles\u201d over Langley\u2019s success. To be clear, there is no discernable backlash to Langley or her music, and she has not spoken publicly about her politics.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\tJohnson described the hit as a song about \u201cloving Texas,\u201d an example of the manner in which many of these creators are incapable of actual cultural comprehension and are instead simply regurgitating slightly remixed versions of formulaic culture war skirmishes for clicks.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cWe were suppressed and our culture was manipulated and psy-opped by our own tax dollars and intel agencies, and Elon Musk shut it all down with USAID,\u201d Johnson said. \u201cLibs have no answer to it. So produce another piece of mumble rap garbage, please, CIA, and tell us that we\u2019re going to like it.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\tHe repeatedly emphasized that Langley\u2019s song had broken records<\/a> set by Whitney Houston and Mariah Carey, two Black female artists, and added that the \u201cqueens of pop music\u201d had been \u201ctraded for true American culture.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

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Rap music has vanished from the top charts after USAID was defunded. <\/p>\n

Instead, country music has DOMINATED for 40 straight weeks<\/p>\n

Ella Langley ‘Choosin Texas’ just shattered records for time spent at #1 \u2013 dethroning Whitney Houston & Mariah Carey<\/p>\n

American Culture is winning \ud83c\uddfa\ud83c\uddf8 pic.twitter.com\/5O8755dzFn<\/a><\/p>\n

\u2014 Benny Johnson (@bennyjohnson) July 30, 2026<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<\/div>\n<\/figure>\n

\n\tCountry music is absolutely seeing a resurgence in popularity, with artists like Kacey Musgraves, Morgan Wallen, Luke Combs, and Stella Lefty all scoring major hits. As previously reported by Rolling Stone<\/em><\/a>,<\/em> R&B and hip-hop still remain the most popular streaming force in the first half of 2026 when taken as a whole, even as other genres gained steam. Latin, K-pop, and other foreign-language artists have also seen exponential growth.<\/p>\n

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\n\tThe decline in rap and hip-hop\u2019s presence on the charts can at least partially be attributed to a controversial rule change<\/a> that Billboard<\/em> made in October of last year. The outlet decided to weigh paid subscription streams more heavily than ad-supported ones, setting the stage for the Hot 100 singles chart to not feature a single rap or hip-hop artist in the top 40 spots for the first time since 1990. In response to the change, YouTube pulled out<\/a> of its data-sharing agreement with Billboard<\/em> in December, writing that the new policy \u201cdoesn\u2019t reflect how fans engage with music today and ignores the massive engagement from fans who don\u2019t have a subscription.\u201d (Billboard<\/em> and Rolling Stone<\/em> are owned by the same company, Penske Media.)<\/p>\n

\n\tIt\u2019s far more likely that the genre\u2019s chart troubles have more to do with these factors, and broader ups and downs in listening patterns, than the defunding of a government agency focused primarily on health and development aid abroad. But right-wingers are not interested in the nuances of streaming data and genre growth. They see an opportunity to continue fomenting racist, nativist grievances on the back of a young artist who has done nothing to court a position as the right\u2019s latest culture war obsession \u2014 except perhaps produce a chart-topping single in the genre she loves.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n