Obama cites the song as an inspiration for his 2008 presidential campaign

CREDIT: GettyEminem has responded to former US President Barack Obama‘s dramatic reading of the lyrics from his song ‘Lose Yourself’.

Last week, Obama launched a new Instagram series looking back at his presidency to tie in with his recently published memoir A Promised Land.

In a video trailing the project, Obama spoke about how he turned to hip-hop in order to focus during his 2008 campaign for the presidency.

“When I needed some inspiration on the presidential campaign I often turned to music,” Obama says. “It was rap that got my head in the right place. Two songs especially: Jay-Z‘s ‘My 1st Song’ and Eminem’s ‘Lose Yourself’.

“Both were about defying the odds and putting it all on the line,” he continued, before reciting the opening lines of the latter.Eminem responded to the shout-out late last week, posting the clip of Obama’s reading along with a prayer hands emoji.

In November ‘Lose Yourself’ featured in a Spotify playlist that was shared by the former president to promote his new memoir.

The playlist also included Beyoncé‘s ‘Halo’ and a cover of Etta James‘ ‘At Last’, Bruce Springsteen’s ‘The Rising’ and a tribute to his wife in the form of ‘Michelle’ by The Beatles.

The Obamas inked an exclusive deal with Spotify in June 2019, when it was announced they would produce a series of podcasts under their Higher Ground Productions.

A year later, in July this year, Michelle released the first instalment of her podcast series The Michelle Obama Podcast to the music and streaming platform. She also hopped on the playlist bandwagon, releasing her 2020 workout mix in January plus a selection of tracks that inspired the first season of her podcast in August.