Marco Rubio Declares Allegiance to West Coast Rap on ‘Outnumbered’

Marco Rubio is well known for his love of hip-hop, so the Republican primary candidate was given the opportunity to expound on the subject of “modern-day poets” during a visit to the Fox News talk show Outnumbered on Thursday.

After some discussion of the Florida Senator’s record on immigration, one of the hosts got the cultural portion of the panel started by asking Rubio to name his favorite member of the Wu-Tang Clan, but the Senator demurred. “That’s like early Nineties stuff, right?” he said.

Despite that apparent dismissal, he went on to declare his abiding affection for Nineties hip-hop, while attempting to deliver a sort of rap history lesson. “I don’t know, maybe I’m getting old. I still love it,” he said. “Especially the stuff that came out of the West Coast and California in the Nineties, when Dre and, you know, then Tupac went West Coast and abandoned the East Coast. That was a good time.”

When the hosts speculated that, as an easterner, perhaps he might like the Notorious B.I.G., Rubio stuck to his coastal preference. “I’m a West Coast fan. I don’t think they should have shot each other and had a dispute that way, but I was a West Coast fan,” he said. “So Tupac went over to the West Coast and went to Death Row records and they produced one of the greatest rap albums ever, which was the one that Dre put out, where it had ‘California’ and all these other songs.”

Asked about more contemporary tastes, Rubio dished out a little hometown love, declaring Pitbull “great,” while noting that he doesn’t listen to the Miami rapper when his kids are around. He has previously expressed admiration for the work of Eminem and Nicki Minaj. For anyone hoping to pick up some hot new moves from the presidential hopeful, Rubio might disappoint. Asked if he dances, he grimaced and said, “Not on camera.” 

Rubio’s not the only Republican presidential candidate with a taste for rap. Former Texas Governor Rick Perry launched his campaign last week with a remix of remix of Colt Ford and the Pete Scobell Band’s rap-country hit “Answer to No One.”