Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez stepped in to defend Taylor Swift on Friday after the singer posted an emotional letter to her fans. According to Swift, music execs Scott Borchetta and Scooter Braun are blocking her from performing or re-recording her older songs, or using footage of those songs in a reported upcoming Netflix special.
On Thursday, Swift posted an impassioned message on Twitter about how Braun and Borchetta are allegedly attempting to keep her from releasing the new Netflix special or performing a medley of her songs at the American Music Awards. Swift is being honoured at the awards show this year as its Artist of the Decade. After Braun (who played a big role in Swift’s brawl with Kanye West) purchased Big Machine Records in June 2019, he became the sole owner of all of Swift’s music before Lover, and as such, can upend any efforts by Swift to broadcast or record her old music. She's been in a public battle with him ever since.
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“The message being sent to me is very clear. Basically, be a good little girl and shut up. Or you’ll be punished,” Swift wrote on Twitter.
AOC, an advocate for women’s rights and against major corporations, responded to the ongoing controversy with her own call to action. There’s no word on whether the freshman congresswoman is a Swiftie — although if we had to guess, her favourite album is 1989, which is the year both she and Swift were born — but she does know how to come in with the right dose of righteous anger at injustice.
“Private equity groups’ predatory practices actively hurt millions of Americans,” Ocasio-Cortez wrote on Twitter. “Their leveraged buyouts have destroyed the lives of retail workers across the country, scrapping 1+ million jobs. Now, they’re holding Taylor Swift’s own music hostage. They need to be reigned in.”
Private equity groups’ predatory practices actively hurt millions of Americans.
— Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (@AOC) November 15, 2019
Their leveraged buyouts have destroyed the lives of retail workers across the country, scrapping 1+ million jobs. Now they’re holding @taylorswift13’s own music hostage.
They need to be reigned in. https://t.co/mSVeH718Hn
For the most part, AOC is hard at work sticking up for the working class with bills like the Loan Shark Prevention Act, which she worked on with Sen. Bernie Sanders and which would force credit card companies to lower their interest rates on consumer loans. Going to bat for Swift — a millionaire pop princess — may seem like a curious choice, but in truth, it makes perfect sense: Ocasio-Cortez knows how to go viral. And one surefire way to go viral is to relate her policies to pop culture for her gigantic following. (Remember when she transformed progressive policies into Ariana Grande songs?)
At the end of the day, though, she was also standing up for a fellow woman in the spotlight who has been mercilessly picked apart and berated when she’s trying to get her work done. “I just want to be able to perform MY OWN music,” Swift wrote. “That’s it.”