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Spotify listeners can now stream Barack and the Boss.
Former President Obama and Bruce Springsteen have teamed up for a wide-ranging Spotify podcast, in which they discuss politics, race, family and manhood.
Eight episodes of Renegades: Born in the USA were recorded over several days at Springsteen’s Jersey Shore farmhouse. The first two were released Monday for streaming on the site.
The podcast was produced by Obama and wife Michelle’s production company, Higher Ground. The couple brokered a podcast deal with Spotify in 2019.
“The longtime friends discuss their hometowns and role models, explore modern manhood, and confront the painfully divided state of the country today—and offer a vision of how we can all move forward together,” Spotify said in a statement.
“On the surface Bruce and I don’t have a lot in common,” the former President says in a voiceover introduction of the series’ first 56 minute episode.
“He’s a white guy from a small town in Jersey. I’m a black guy of mixed race born in Hawaii with a childhood that took me around the world. He’s a rock and roll icon. I’m a lawyer and politician, not as cool,” Obama continued.
“Over the years, what we’ve found is that we’ve got a shared sensibility: about work, about family and about America.”
The episodes reveal that Obama first thought Springsteen was shy when they met on the campaign trail in 2008, but the musician opened up after the two imbibed together.
Wide-ranging conversations between the unlikely duo dissect cultural and political divides and their unlikely similarities, including their shared sense of growing up as outsiders.
“I don’t think it’s something that you choose. I think it’s something that is innate within you,” Springsteen said on the show.
“I need to find my way into my town [of Freehold.] I’ve got to find out who my people are. And it wasn’t until I discovered music and found a way to process… my own identity and to find a way to speak, and to have some impact, and how to be heard, that I began to feel at home where I lived,” Springsteen reflected.
Spotify gained 27 percent more followers last year compared to 2019 as it made a new push to feature popular podcasts.
The Monday unveiling comes less than two weeks after the 71-year-old rocker was busted for DWI on the Jersey Shore.
Springsteen’s much-hyped Jeep Super Bowl commercial, that touted national unity, was taken off the air in the wake of his arrest.
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