A Super Tuesday polling place in suburban Raleigh was the perfect spot to promote a music business, according to Monty Bynum.
AILSA CHANG, HOST:
And outside Raleigh, N.C., one man made his Super Tuesday polling place a stage. NPR’s senior White House correspondent Tamara Keith was there.
TAMARA KEITH, BYLINE: It’s 10 in the morning, and voters are trickling into a polling place in a strip mall in the suburb of Clayton, a pretty standard Super Tuesday scene until Monty Bynum pulls up wearing a sequined bomber jacket and dark glasses. He plants a black and gold yard sign amongst the red, white and blue candidate placards. It says, “King Of NC.”
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, “KING OF NC”)
MONTY BYNUM: (Singing) I’m the king of NC, baby.
KEITH: It’s the name of the song Bynum is hoping will give him his big break, and he’s blasting it from a speaker next to his car.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, “KING OF NC”)
BYNUM: (Singing) And y’all can’t [expletive] with me.
So you can drive around, and you can see, for instance, that Jeff Sullivan is running for school board. And you can see it all around the entire town. And so if he does that single-handedly with his yard signs for politics, I thought, why could I not do that single-handedly with my yard signs for my album?
KEITH: Bynum is a 23-year-old R&B artist who’s been performing since he was a kid. His cousin, Petey Pablo, made a name for himself as a rapper in the early 2000s, and he appears on Bynum’s album.
BYNUM: If you guys like this music, I’m Petey Pablo’s cousin.
UNIDENTIFIED PERSON: Oh, cool. OK.
BYNUM: And you can listen to it on the radio.
KEITH: There are dedicated volunteers here handing out campaign flyers, and then there’s Bynum passing out cards with a QR code to hear his album.
BYNUM: If you guys like Bruno Mars, if you like Usher, Chris Brown, Michael Jackson…
KEITH: Some people stop, others cut a wide berth. At one point, Bynum takes a break to go cast his own ballot. Kelly Bradshaw is here to support a friend who’s running for school board.
KELLY BRADSHAW: He started playing his music, and it had a good vibe. So we’ve all kind of been out here jamming, like, while we’re handing out cards.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, “KING OF NC (REMIX FT. PETEY PABLO)”)
PETEY PABLO: (Rapping) Live life to the fullest. Look where life took us.
KEITH: A bit of joy in a strip mall parking lot on primary day.
Tamara Keith, NPR News, Clayton, N.C.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, “KING OF NC (REMIX FT. PETEY PABLO)”)
BYNUM: (Singing) I’m the king of NC, baby. Yeah, I’m the king of NC, baby.
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