Walsh, Matt (1964- )

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    Oliver Anthony Says ‘Rich Men North of Richmond’ Is Not a Republican Anthem

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    “I wrote this song about those people,” Oliver Anthony said of his No. 1 hit, after presidential candidates answered a question about his Billboard hit at their first debate.The singer Oliver Anthony, whose song “Rich Men North of Richmond” has soared to the top of the Billboard singles chart, released a YouTube video on Friday denouncing Republicans and conservative outlets for co-opting his song.“It was funny seeing that presidential debate,” Anthony said. “I wrote that song about those people.”A clip of Anthony performing was played by Fox News moderators at the start of the Republican presidential debate on Wednesday night in Milwaukee, after a series of videos of Americans lamenting conditions under President Biden, including inflation and homelessness. The clip showed Anthony — with guitar in hand and two dogs at his feet — singing: “These rich men north of Richmond / Lord knows they all just wanna have total control.”The song, which Anthony uploaded to YouTube earlier this month, had caught fire with conservative figures like Matt Walsh and Laura Ingraham, who described it as an authentic expression of working-class American life. Widely perceived as a conservative anthem, it also drew critiques from some on the left, who called the lyrics racist.At the debate, Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida was the first to respond to a question asking why the song had struck a chord with so many Americans.“Our country is in decline,” Mr. DeSantis said. “This decline is not inevitable. It’s a choice.” He added, “Those rich men north of Richmond have put us in this situation.”Anthony said Friday it “cracks me up” that the candidates had been forced to listen to his song onstage, because he was singing about powerful people like them.The new video showed him behind the wheel of his truck, as heavy rain pelted the windows. “That song has nothing to do with Joe Biden,” he said. “You know, it’s a lot bigger than Joe Biden.”Anthony, who is from Farmville, Va., also said that he was fed up by what he perceived to be the weaponization of his music by both the right and left.“It’s aggravating seeing people on conservative news try to identify with me like I’m one of them,” he said. “I see the right, trying to characterize me as one of their own. And I see the left trying to discredit me.”The left, he added, had misinterpreted his lyrics as being attacks on the poor when, he said, he was trying to defend them. “I’ve got to be clear that my message like with any of my songs, it references the inefficiencies of the government.”Reason, a libertarian magazine, had lauded what it perceived as Anthony’s anti-tax message. But liberal commentators were troubled by a lyric about the “obese milkin’ welfare.” The folk singer Billy Bragg even wrote his own version of the song and cautioned Anthony about punching down.At first, Anthony appeared to welcome the attention from conservatives. He granted Fox News the right to use it in the debate, Politico reported. And he gave an interview to the network, saying that he had been motivated to write the song because of his own struggles, which he assumed were shared by others.“It resonates the suffering in our world right now, like even in our own country,” he said then. “We’ve had years of people feeling depressed and hopeless and every time you look at the T.V. or get online everything’s negative.” He added that “corporate media and education” had helped to sow division.Anthony returned to that theme in his video on Friday, saying that despite how it may appear, his music had actually united people.“It’s driving people crazy to see the unity that’s come from this from all walks,” Anthony said. “This isn’t a Republican and Democrat thing. This isn’t even a United States thing. Like, this has been a global response.”Anthony, who could not immediately be reached for an interview on Friday evening, described himself as a “nobody” who through some divine intervention had been tasked with sending a message that things needed to change. Before his meteoric rise to fame, he was an unknown songwriter. Although he performs as Oliver Anthony, his full name is Christopher Anthony Lunsford.“I don’t know what this country is going to look like in 10 or 20 years if things don’t change,” he said. “I don’t know what this world is going to look like. And like, something has to be done about it. You know?” More

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      ‘Flamin’ Hot’ Review: Neon Dust, Hollywood Corn

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      The actor Eva Longoria’s feature directing debut is a fictionalized account of the birth of a spicy, profitable snack.“Do I have initiative?” Richard Montañez (played by Jesse Garcia) asks his wife, Judy (Annie Gonzalez), in the dramatic comedy “Flamin’ Hot,” directed with affectionate brio by the actor Eva Longoria. Montañez, on whose memoir this fictionalized story is based, is eyeing an application for a job at the Frito-Lay facility in Rancho Cucamonga, Calif. While he’s stumped about that word — “initiative” — soon enough he’ll embody it, as he goes from being a janitor to becoming a family man behind a Cheetos flavor that extended the snack maker’s reach, launching Montañez’s marketing career.Garcia and Gonzalez possess poignant chemistry as the economically struggling couple. They first meet as children. He, a child of farm workers, is being bullied in the lunchroom and at home; she has a bruise that suggests they might have more in common than simply being the brown kids at a predominately white elementary school. Montañez’s youth is recounted in a sometimes boastful, sometimes self-deprecating, always upbeat voice-over that softens the edges of his childhood, which include routine bigotry and outright racism, but also brutality and judgment from his father, Vacho (Emilio Rivera).Montañez came of age in the late ’60s and early ’70s, and the pride and resistance of the Chicano Movement, while adjacent, were not central to his upbringing. Instead, as he tells us in an account that swings from the present to the past, from the biographical to the fantastical, he found friends in a gang. It wasn’t until Judy got pregnant that the pair agreed that things had to change.From the moment he enters the Frito-Lay facility, Montañez is a dogged learner, asking questions about chemical processes, wondering about an extruder, even celebrating an industrial power washer. His curiosity aggravates his supervisor (Matt Walsh), worries the friend who helped him get the gig (Bobby Soto) and breaks down the defenses of an engineer (Dennis Haysbert) who knows the facility inside out, and who becomes Montañez’s initially suspicious mentor.The titular flavor, it seems, didn’t happen overnight. Montañez’s stint begins in the mid-70s and takes off in the early ’90s, when the facility faces hard times. An executive, Roger Enrico (Tony Shalhoub), coaches the beleaguered work force to “think like a CEO.” And the ensuing scenes — of Rich landing his hot idea, inspired by the Mexican street corn elote — charm as intended. “It burns good,” the wee-est of the Montañezes (Brice Gonzalez) proclaims as the family samples seasonings.Longoria, working from a screenplay by Lewis Colick and Linda Yvette Chávez, sprinkles lessons in self-esteem throughout. (The movie is Longoria’s feature directing debut.) And the women here — including Montañez’s mother and Judy — are more than run-of-the-mill catalysts. Still, should it come as a surprise that a movie this puffed up has a dusting of flavors that might not be real? If you read too deeply about the ingredients that went into “Flamin’ Hot,” you might find enough confusion over whether Montañez actually invented the flavor (as claimed) to make your conscience mildly cramp.Flamin’ HotRated PG-13 for some strong language, and drug talk. Running time: 1 hour 39 minutes. Watch on Disney+ and Hulu. More