How Trump's Nostalgia-Fueled Concert Turned Into an Embarrassing Debacle
You know things are bad when Milli Vanilli is canceling on you
Culturally speaking, it can often seem as if Donald Trump is trapped in the early ‘90s, his taste permanently stunted the moment he opened the Taj Mahal Casino (a.k.a. “the 8th wonder of the world”) and left Ivana for Marla Maples.
He loves Les Misérables, which opened on Broadway in 1987. He reportedly believes that “November Rain” by Guns n’ Roses is the best music video of all time, an opinion which proves the adage that even a broken clock is right twice a day. At rallies, he is known to play Sinéad O’Connor’s 1990 hit “Nothing Compares 2 U.” His favorite movies include Goodfellas (also 1990) and Bloodsport (1988). He is preoccupied with broadcast TV, especially 60 Minutes and late-night talk shows, and barely seems aware that streaming exists, even though his wife’s documentary is on Amazon.
Which is why it made perfect sense last week when Freedom 250 announced the lineup for “The Great American State Fair,” a series of concerts on the National Mall this summer to celebrate the nation’s semiquincentennial.
The roster was of artists who all peaked before Bill Clinton was elected president: Milli Vanilli, Vanilla Ice, C+C Music Factory, Young MC, and Poison’s Bret Michaels, among others. It was a nostalgic cavalcade of has-beens and never-were, an extravaganza of where-are-they-nows that would have inspired every seventh grader in the country in 1990 to do the Roger Rabbit in their Z. Cavariccis. (The only group that was missing from the lineup? Peach Pit favorite Color Me Badd.)
But, much like the romance between Brandon Walsh and Emily Valentine, this ‘90s fever dream was doomed from the start. What was touted as a concert series full of “nostalgia, iconic hits, and live performances from some of the era’s most recognizable names,” quickly spiraled into a debacle of comic proportions — Trump’s very own Fyre Festival, minus the catering.
Nearly as soon as the lineup was announced, artists started backing out, claiming they had been misled about the nature of the event, which was organized by Freedom 250, a public-private partnership established by the Trump administration last year (not to be confused with America 250, which was set up a decade ago).
First to bail was Minneapolis funk star Morris Day, who said simply, “It’s A No For Me😎.” Rapper Young MC busted a move out of the concert, saying he had no idea it was a “Trump-backed” event. Martina McBride, the country music star whose 1993 hit “Independence Day” is often mistaken for a patriotic anthem even though it’s about a woman leaving an abusive relationship, also bowed out, saying she was also under the impression the fair would be a “nonpartisan event.”
Most confusingly, Jodie Rocco, a singer who performed on dozens of songs released under the name Milli Vanilli, said the musicians behind the group had never been asked to perform at Freedom 250. Instead, organizers had apparently booked Fab Morvan, the surviving member of the notorious European duo that sold millions of records and won a best new artist Grammy before it was revealed that they were lip-synching to music recorded by other singers in a scheme devised by German producer Frank Farian. (In an email, Rocco said she was actually a “staunch Trump supporter” who objected to the “fraudulent” use of the Milli Vanilli name, not the political nature of the event.)
Even Michaels — a man who broke his nose onstage at the Tony Awards and starred in not one, not two, but three seasons of the VH1 dating show Rock of Love (including one set on a tour bus) — concluded that the fair was beneath his dignity.
“Unfortunately, what was presented to us as a celebration of our country has evolved into something much more divisive than what I agreed to be a part of,” he said in a lengthy Instagram post.
By the weekend, the situation had gotten so bad that even the president couldn’t deny the collective rejection. In a Truth Social tirade, he railed against the “boring,” “overpriced” musicians “who nobody wants to hear,” and suggested canceling the concert series entirely and replacing it with — what else? — a MAGA rally. For his inauguration not even 18 months ago, Trump was able to book artists like Carrie Underwood and Snoop Dogg.
Now, he can’t retain the guy from Milli Vanilli. Morvan initially said he was planning to perform (and actually sing the songs), but by Monday he, too, was out.
“I was there to unite the people, to have them walk down memory lane, celebrate life. It was a way to say, ‘Hey, I’m still here, you’re still here. Let’s have a good time together,’” he said on CNN. “But throughout the week it turned into a circus. I’m not into politics, so you hear it first here: I’m not attending the June 26th celebration.”
Arguably even more humiliating than the defections were the statements from the few artists who have doubled-down on performing.
Freedom Williams, the guy who once vowed to make dance music enthusiasts sweat until they bled, responded to the controversy with a rambling, seven-minute Instagram video which he apparently filmed while sitting on the toilet. In the N-word-laden rant, which included digressions about vaccines, Muammar Gaddafi, Zionists, and “white capitalists,” Williams said he still planned to perform even though he isn’t a Trump fan. In fact, he said he would vote for “Genghis Khan, Hitler, and motherfucking Ivan the Terrible” before he’d let anyone tell him what to do. (You can read the full transcript of his tirade here, if you dare.)
Vanilla Ice also made it clear that, despite the criticism, he still planned to light up the stage and wax a chump like a candle.
“I don’t even vote, so I don’t even care,” the rapper and home-flipper also known as Robert Van Winkle told TMZ. “I’ll go play for Putin and I’ll play in Iran, if you want. It don’t matter. There’s music fans everywhere.”
Trump’s desire to celebrate the nation’s 250th by time-traveling to 1990 makes some sense when you consider the sorry state of the music business 36 years ago.
Vanilla Ice, whose 1990 hit “Ice, Ice Baby” became the first hip-hop song to reach No. 1 on the Billboard hot 100 and more recently has been used to troll anti-ICE protestors, was a master of what we’d now call “cultural appropriation.” He was a handsome white guy with a goofy haircut who sold millions of records by peddling a sanitized version of Black music to an audience of suburban girls. (And told his detractors to “kiss my white butt!”)
Milli Vanilli was even worse, a particularly egregious example of a powerful white producer exploiting Black artists — an all-too-common pattern in the music industry. As detailed in an excellent 2023 documentary, Farian made a fortune peddling a hoax but faced little of the vitriol that Morvan and Pilatus endured in the wake of the scandal. Meanwhile, the mostly-Black musicians who played on the Girl You Know It’s True album received little compensation or credit for their work.
Then there’s C+C Music Factory, another producer-driven dance pop group accused of lip-syncing. Martha Wash, who recorded key vocals that were used in the group’s hit “Gonna Make You Sweat” filed a lawsuit in 1990 accusing the producers of fraud for replacing her in the music video and album art with the svelter Zelma Davis. (Wash would become what Rolling Stone called “the most famous unknown singer of the Nineties,” contributing vocals to numerous dance hits from the era without being in the videos or album art.)
Instead of celebrating this milestone by showcasing the best in American culture, the Trump administration tried to resurrect some of the worst musical trends of the recent past. As the cancellations continue to roll in, the future of “The Great American State Fair” looks increasingly uncertain. But what’s clear is that Trump has turned the nation’s anniversary into an embarrassing fiasco — and he can’t even blame it on the rain.
Meredith Blake is the culture columnist for The Contrarian
What's really amazing is that he only went to the late 1980s and early 1990s. I would have expected him to go to the 1950s.