French musician Woodkid denounces Trump’s use of one of his songs

The Republican presidential candidate posted a video montage on his social media to the martial-sounding track by Woodkid, released in 2012.

French musician Woodkid denounced, on Wednesday August 7, the use without his knowledge of his title Run Boy Run, which he describes as“LGBT+ anthem”in a Donald Trump campaign clip, calling on his record company Universal Music France to “react”. “Again, I never gave permission for my music to be used in this Donald Trump video,” Woodkid recalled in English on X, in reference to a clip from which he had already distanced himself in December.

This montage, which the Republican candidate for the American presidential election posted again on Monday, August 5, on his social network Truthsocial, compiles for nearly two minutes images of the former American president, soldiers and anti-vaccine protesters, embellished with slogans such as “America First”, all on the martial-sounding title of Woodkid, released in 2012.

With words meaning in particular “Run, my boy, run,” “This world is not made for you” And “they are trying to catch you”, “Run Boy Run is an LGBT+ anthem written by myself, a proud LGBT+ musician,” stressed the singer-songwriter, Yoann Lemoine by his real name, on X.

“What irony!” he added, as measures such as banning transgender people from serving in the military and ending the granting of US visas to unmarried partners of homosexual foreign diplomats were put in place during Donald Trump’s term. “Please react and do not be complicit,” the artist sent a message to Universal Music France. When contacted by AFP, the group did not immediately respond.

In December, Woodkid had disapproved “on a human and political level” the association of his music with Donald Trump’s video. This was not the first time he had denounced this type of fact. In 2021, he had promised on Twitter “prosecutions” against Génération Zemmour, a movement of young people supporting Éric Zemmour, then a far-right candidate in the French presidential election, after a “propaganda video using, in a totally illicit manner”, his music.

In 2016, he also spoke out on the same network against the broadcast of his production during a demonstration by opponents of same-sex marriage in France. “It was the medieval side of my music that must have pleased them,” he had launched.