DJ Chubb E. Swagg Details the Music Behind Kamala Harris’ Howard University 2024 Election Events: ‘I Wanted to Tell a Story About Perseverance’
The award-winning DJ breaks down how he built a setlist to prepare an emotional crowd for the Vice President's concession speech. Read the Billboard interview.
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From Charli XCX’s momentum-shifting “Kamala is brat” post to Beyoncé and Kendrick Lamar’s “Freedom” serving as her official campaign song, music was integral to Vice President Kamala Harris’ 2024 bid for the U.S. presidency.
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On Election Day (Nov. 5), Vice President Harris returned to her beloved alma mater, Howard University, to observe the election results and spend the historic night at the place where she first ran for office. Though former President Donald Trump would ultimately win the election, Harris still chose to concede and end her campaign with dignity and grace on her undergraduate campus.
To soundtrack both Election Night and the hours leading up to the VP’s concession speech, the Harris campaign selected DJ Chubb E. Swag (born Terrell D. Williams) – another Cali-bred Howard student who has played gigs ranging from Nipsey Hussle tours to the wedding of Vanessa Bell Calloway’s daughter. “I used to be Nipsey Hussle‘s tour DJ years ago, back in 2012 and part of 2013,” he tells Billboard. “We did some important work together and I did one of his last shows before he transitioned into the Crenshaw situation.”
Though his DJ career has brought him to stages around the world, very few gigs can compare to preparing the stage for a sitting Vice President – let alone in the context of one of the most mind-boggling election cycles in U.S. history. Tasked with keeping hope alive during Election Night and curating the mood for a concession speech sure to break the hearts of millions of listeners, DJ Chubb E. Swag turned to the healing power of Black music to tell his own story and Vice President Harris formally ended her campaign. From The Isley Brothers’ “Shout” and Chaka Khan’s “What Cha’ Gonna Do For Me” to Beyoncé’s “America Has a Problem” and Lamar’s “Alright,” DJ Chubb E. Swagg curated a setlist brimming with hope and resistance in the face of complete and utter despair.
In an illuminating conversation with Billboard, DJ Chubb E. Swagg details how he rose to the occasion of emceeing Election Night and the following day, the legacy of Howard DJs and breaking “Swag Surfin” on the storied campus.
What’s your history with Howard?
I went to Howard University from 2008 until around 2013. 2012 was when I started going on tour with Nipsey, after which I had ceased to go to school for a second. I came back for a little when I was done [with the tour] to try and finish, but business started moving so quickly that it was more advantageous for me to start worrying about that instead. In addition, I started building a little DJ family there and teaching kids how to DJ for free. We got a nice little legacy and history of DJs from Howard University, especially over the last 15 years.
When did you find out who won the election? When were you confirmed to DJ these events?
People had an idea of [the loss], as the event was going along, but we knew before we left. I was confirmed that morning to do the event, or the day before honestly. We had been in conversation for a second, but it wasn’t a guaranteed thing. I asked as soon as I found out [about where Vice President Harris would be spending election night]. It had to go through a couple of channels. I got lucky because I was invited to the Vice President’s mansion earlier this year for a celebration of HBCU leaders, and we got a picture together. I’m not gonna say we were on a first-name basis, but she had a nice reference for me just in case somebody asked her about [potential DJs].
The day before the Election, one of the higher-ups got in contact with me and said, “Hey, we heard you’ve been chosen to DJ the event. Can you come set up the day before because they have to do several different sweeps?”
In addition, there was also a completely different watch party that was supposed to be happening at the same time in the gymnasium and they sent all those kids to the yard. The DJ from the gymnasium, DJ K.Dimes, came up to me during the Election Night event and told me that they shut down the stadium. [The Harris team] wanted everybody to get the experience. As soon as he told me that, I made sure he got to get a picture and play a song or two; now he was part of history as well. We try to lift as we climb.
I got confirmed to DJ before her concession speech at 2:00 a.m. on Wednesday. They said they enjoyed my energy and what was going on at the rally, and they wanted me back for the next day. Before they even got any words out, I told them, “Instead of trying to force dancing on this day, can we keep things a little more mellow and can we look to tell more of a story?” They were okay with it, and I had to send in a playlist the day before.
I put about 150 extra songs on the playlist. I sent over nearly 500 songs in total — you’re potentially playing for a seven-hour period. As a DJ, there is no “travel light,” you gotta pack everything.
How much did the decision of the election influence the kind of set you created going into the concession speech yesterday?
We had an idea that things were not right when they started playing the CNN video and she was already down like 80 points. There were seeds of doubt being sown at that moment. People were still hopeful and resolute because they knew what happened in 2020 with a lot of states [going] blue later on, but it really felt like an uphill battle.
I wanted to go in and tell a story about perseverance with the music. I wanted to tell a story about making a way out of no way. My Election Night set was a little more energetic due to the circumstances, and the following day had to be a bit more mellow. I still got some energetic records in there, but it was definitely different.
How did you understand your role and responsibility as the literal master of ceremonies preparing the crowd for an emotional and historic concession speech?
Have you ever buried a relative? It’s honor and it’s duty, but at the same time, it’s extreme sadness, heartbreak, gut-wrenching, all the superlatives you hear in the movies.
I have so much respect for Kamala [Harris], because she said, “Win or lose, I’m going down with the gang. I’m coming back home. Win or lose, I’m talking to my people and I’m talking to them at the place where everything first started.” I more than empathize with that. I wanted to make sure her transition, whether it was in or out, was met with nothing but love.
This Howard thing… people talk about it abstractly, but it’s real. She and I are both Howard students from California. We had to come from a long way to get where we are. We’re doubly connected. Outside of the exposure, I wanted to be there to make sure my sister was good. I wanted to make sure she was okay. She fought her life out for the last 100 or so days for us. When everybody else was telling her what to do and when she was doing everything in her power to make something shake, nobody had her back. So, I had to make sure we had her back.
On X, you wrote, “We use music to tell a story. Glad I could include mine.” What were the parts of your specific story that you were plugging into the setlist?
One of the first songs I got off that day was “Changes” by 2Pac, and one of the verses starts off with “I see no changes, all I see is racist faces/ Misplaced hate makes disgrace to races.” I started off preaching. Then, I played Chaka Khan’s “What Cha’ Gonna Do For Me?” and Hall & Oates’ “I Can’t Go for That.” A lot of those are self-explanatory, like, personally, I’m not going for no Trump presidency. You gotta ask Trump what he’s gonna do for me! And that can go both ways because what are we gonna do for Kamala now that the chips are down?
I actually wanted to play The Isley Brothers’ “Shout” the day prior, but it was too old for the crowd. We had a really young crowd on Election Night. There were a lot of older people there, but the young folks showed up for Kamala in droves. I played Victoria Monét’s “On My Mama,” because they call her “Momala” or “Big Mala” sometimes, so I wanted to make sure she was comforted. You could hear it in her voice – not saying that she couldn’t handle that moment, but if you could be anywhere in the world other than this specific place right now, I’m sure you’d want to be there.
I added a few extra songs that I played that weren’t on the approved list. I remember one of the DJs that I brought up was trying to play Soulja Boy and I was like, “Ay, turn that s—t off!” [Laughs.] I love you to death, but if the [artist] ever said anything stupid in public, we gon have to drain the swamp on that one! No Soulja, no Chris Brown… Bobby Brown didn’t even make it through testing.
Who made that call?
I don’t make those decisions. I don’t have that type of power. I spent seven or eight hours on the initial list making sure it was curated perfectly without any abusers, fascists, etc. When [her team] sent the list back, they only took off one name and it was Bobby Brown. I was able to play Chaka Khan and even Janet Jackson if I wanted to – I didn’t because [Jackson] had said something kinda goofy about Kamala.
What did you see on the crowd’s faces from your vantage point?
It was like a third homecoming. The energy out there was electric. It was even more hilarious with the random rally-goers and people who had never been around HBCU folks or Black people because they were like “What the hell is going on?! Why are they playing this song?”
There were even staff members asking me, “Can you play a dancing song?” And I’ll tell them, “This is the dancing song! This very slow Tamia song is the dancing song.” Women of all ages are moving to this one, and they will not get tired; they’ll do the song for nine minutes if they need to.
I played so much s—t on Election Night. We went around the world. I was playing calypso, soca, go-go, East Coast, West Coast, Midwest, Dirty South – I did a lot of Afrobeats on both days. For the concession speech, I played Asake’s “Organize,” and I thought it was really important for the movement moving forward. In order for us to do what we need to do, we need to get organized quickly.
On Election Night, people came in excited, and they got their hearts broken. Before the concession speech, people came in with their hearts already broken. You could see it on their faces. It was like trying to lift somebody out of despair, and they don’t wanna leave that [emotional] space just yet.
I almost felt like I lost the election, like I let y’all down. I was in the middle of it. When s—t really started getting bad — after 11:30 p.m., around midnight — they was asking me to play hype, dance, rally stuff. I was like, “As much as I can do that, I don’t think it’s gonna do what you think it’s gonna do right now.” Having to tell the truth is really more difficult than people give it credit for being. Don’t nobody wanna hear that s—t! They don’t wanna swag surf right now.
Speaking of, you’re also the DJ who broke “Swag Surfin” at Howard, right?
I am! And I was upset because they did a whole ESPN thing on this s—t and they got somebody on there who was on a whole different radio station at the time and damn near 50-60 years old – n—a, you wasn’t playing no “Swag Surf!”
We had to bring that record up from the South. N—as didn’t even put that shit in a promo email at first! Students were the n—as that put us on to it at first. I guess they went back for vacation and when they came back [Fast Life Yungstaz’s] “Swag Surf” was a big thing – and I wanted to make sure I was on top of it. I was breaking all the s—t. Everybody wanted to go more mainstream, and I was really trying to break that underground.
If I remember correctly, Obama was already president, and his brother-in-law, Michelle’s brother, is the head coach at Morgan State University. They devised this plan where Morgan ended up playing Howard every year at Howard, and Obama started coming to campus once a year just for a basketball game. I DJ’d the very first game that he came to; I played Jeezy and Jay-Z‘s “My President Is Black” and “Swag Surfin.” He gave me the head nod from about 1000 feet away.
I had hands in all that s—t, I was at Howard during what we call the “Golden Era” of those HBCU anthems. There were some songs I broke at Howard and some songs that I was the first to play in general. Like “Country S—t” by Big K.R.I.T. — we was beating down his DJ’s email because we wanted to play it, and it wasn’t in any record pool. He emailed us the studio version and the clean version, and I was one of the first people to ever play that record. Dom Kennedy wasn’t even trying to get on the radio, and he sent me a clean version of “1997.” That Howard legacy runs deep!
