Barack Obama Talks Music With Rolling Stone

The Commander-in-chief says while he's got some old school tracks on his iPod, he's also bumping Nas, Jay-Z and Lil Wayne.

Barack Obama will grace the cover of Rolling Stone magazine's upcoming issue. In the cover story, the president speaks on several topics, including the kinds of music he listens to.

"My iPod now has about 2,000 songs and it is a source of great pleasure to me," he told the magazine. "I am probably still more heavily weighted toward the music of my childhood than I am the new stuff. There's still a lot of Stevie Wonder, a lot of Bob Dylan, a lot of Rolling Stones, a lot of R&B, a lot of Miles Davis and John Coltrane. Those are the old standards."

Obama also added that he's been delving into Hip Hop lately. During his campaign trail in 2008, he'd met with both Jay-Z and Kanye West, who he hoped would help him to reach out to the youth.

"Thanks to Reggie [Love, the president's personal aide], my rap palate has greatly improved. Jay-Z used to be sort of what predominated, but now I've got a little Nas and a little Lil Wayne and some other stuff, but I would not claim to be an expert. Malia and Sasha are now getting old enough to where they start hipping me to things. Music is still a great source of joy and occasional solace in the midst of what can be some difficult days."

Although President Obama did talk music, he also touched heavily on some more serious issues. Midterm elections are coming up and Democrats are predicted to lose key seats.

"We have to get folks off the sidelines," he said. "People need to shake off this lethargy, people need to buck up. Bringing about change is hard--that's what I said during the campaign. It has been hard and we've got some lumps to show for it. But if people now want to take their ball and go home, that tells me folks weren't serious in the first place. If you're serious, now's exactly the time that people have to step up."
-Salima Koroma