How Lil Jon Came to Be a Star of the Democratic National Convention

Lil Jon‘s short but galvanizing appearance at the Democratic National Convention, representing the state of Georgia during a musical roll call, may have seemed like a random delight to some viewers. In actuality, it was the culmination of a weeks-old viral meme that tied the rapper to vice presidential candidate Tim Walz… and also a bookend to a 10-year-old get-out-the-vote effort from Lil Jon.

Surprising the DNC with a surprise appearance by the hip-hop star was the brainchild of two women — political operative Ashley Spillane and Lil Jon’s longtime publicist, Tamar Juda — who approached the White House and the Kamala Harris campaign with the idea of capitalizing on the current meme at the convention. Campaign toppers responded with the idea of working Lil Jon into a state-by-state musical roll call, as the only live performer amid a playlist otherwise curated by DJ Cassidy. It turned out to be a bigger hit than even they expected.

The meme in question started when TikTokkers and others responded to Harris’ selection of Walz as her VP pick by transforming the lyrics of Lil Jon’s “Get Low” from “to the window, to the wall” into “to the window, to the Walz.” Spillane and Juda had worked together a decade ago on a Rock the Vote campaign that had involved changing the lyrics of another Lil Jon hit, the 8-times-platinum “Turn Down for What,” into “Turn Out for What.” So they set to work on how to turn this viral bit into something that might actually excite voters… not to mention the delegates themselves. On the phone with Variety, they explained the story of how the moment came together.

Where does this start, chronologically?

Ashley Spillane: Really chronologically, Tamar, Jon and I worked on a Rock the Vote effort in 2014. Tamar and I became close friends then and are both political junkies and hip-hop junkies, and are always watching for these cultural moments. Just organically on the internet, people who I think were excited about the new vice presidential candidate were coming up with these funny memes: “from the window to the Walz,” and so we immediately started texting each other all the memes that were coming out. The social media component of this blew up in that way, so we got in touch with each other to see what we could figure out in real time together. I asked Tamar if she thought Jon would be interested in doing something with it, and I said I would check with the campaign to see what they think, and we we reached out to those guys sort of in parallel to each other.

I first talked to Colleen Loper at the White House, who connected me with Carla Frank, who was the director of surrogate engagement for the campaign, now working for the Walz team. She wrote back immediately and said, “This would be amazing. Like, let’s make it happen.”

Tamar Juda: When I went back to Jon and said, “Hey, would you be interested if the DNC and the White House would want to do something with you, given that ‘from the windows to the Walz’ is now a viral moment, would you be open to that?,” he said, “Absolutely. Let’s figure something out that would make a great impact and have a lot of fun for everyone.”

Spillane: So he was all in, and Tamar, Carla on the campaign and I got to work and mapped this out and made it happen.

Juda: I think what a beautiful moment this is, in this time, to have all women put this moment together for Kamala and her campaign, with whatever specific issues obviously are on the ballot — and all women know what those issues are. To be a woman in the position that I am in, to work with Ashley on this and the women at the DNC and White House, was absolutely an honor for me. And I know Jon himself is extremely proud it was women who pulled this together in this moment in time.

Spillane: Colleen Loper and Carla Frank, at the White House and on the campaign, respectively, came up with the idea of roll call, and then we all worked together to flesh out what he could he do. That was a call with me and Tamar talking about, OK, what if we brought “Turn Out for What” back? And Carla Frank saying, “What if we had ‘Get Low’ in there as well?” So it was this group of women coming up and sort of producing it.

Juda: For Jon, it was extremely important to him to flip the words additionally for “Get Low” for some combination of Kamala Harris or VP Harris and Governor Walz. So Jon and I sort of worked through that together, and then he landed on exactly what he wanted to say. And then Jon told me, “I absolutely also want to include ‘We’re not going back.’ That is very important to me. Because it’s important, and part of the phrasing Kamala is using.” So that was Jon’s call to also include that. And as you see, he did include it in his live performance. If if you watch the clip, before he got to that chant of “VP Harris, governor Walz” in “Get Low,” he stepped in there with “We’re not going back” within the transition between “Turn Out for What” into “Get Low.”

To prepare the music, Jon pulled up “Turn Down for What” first. I had him pull up the file from when he did it with Rock the Vote and it became “Turn Out for What.” He put that in there. He then transitioned into “Get Low” and put that into one file. He sent me the file and then I sent that file over to DJ Cassidy.

We decided not to have Jon there (for rehearsal) because the DNC made it clear that there was going to be journalists and press there. So in order to keep it a secret, we sent Jon’s road manager instead, and Jon stayed back. They just walked through the steps of it, like the physicality and blocking with the camera.

Lil Jon [via email]: I was actually first asked to DJ for the GA Delegates at their DNC party to kick off the week. My publicist, Tamar Juda, has the relationship connect to the DNC [through Ashley Spillane at Impactual] and they worked together on this about me doing some type of performance on the floor for the GA roll call… I thought it would be pretty crazy, so I was all in! With “Turn Down For What” I knew it would get that arena goin’, and it was very important to me to flip the words not only on “Get Low” to “VP Harris… Governor Walz,” but to also incorporate Kamala Harris’ slogan of “We’re not going back” into the performance. It was an honor to create an iconic moment.

Spillane: I was the president of Rock the Vote in 2014, and we collaborated on a 2014 midterm anthem. It was when “Turn Down for What” was just everywhere, the hit of the year. At Rock The Vote, we were talking about it and we said, “What if he recorded this anthem as ‘Turn Out for What’ and we made it about the election?” And he was just such an amazing collaborator and focused on helping making sure that we could get more people out to the polls.

Juda: For that Rock the Vote campaign, Jon loved the idea of switching it out for “Turn Out for What,” so that (it’s about) whatever issue you care about, what makes you turn out to come out and vote. He just loved that it seamlessly all worked together.

Spillane: So when he brought that back, “Turn Out for What?,” at the convention, it was a full 10-year circle moment coming together. And I knew that this political group of people was gonna go nuts, and I think we were all eager and optimistic that it was gonna be a great part of the night, but we are beyond thrilled that it became like one of the most viral moments of the whole week.

I actually worked for now-governor Walz in 2010. Now I have my own social impact consulting firm, so we work with philanthropists, celebrities and companies to help drive civic engagement. But just again, the many full-circle, overlapping friendships that have been in existence for 10 or 15 years is all women that conspired to make this happen — and women who are also, just to be very clear, we’re all behind the scenes people. So it was just a really beautiful, amazingly fun thing to get to do together. These moments really do matter. You know, I work in politics and in my life, there are very few moments where people that aren’t in politics start reaching out about things in politics, and this was one of them where my phone just went absolutely nuts. It’s really exciting when those things happen because you know you’re reaching the audience that you want to be reaching, people who we’re trying to get excited and get involved.

Juda: This really heightened the level of perhaps what people are going to expect in the future from roll calls. Lil Jon’s team is extremely grateful to the DNC for entrusting him to pull through with this moment and make it a great moment for them — and for hip-hop. We’re very grateful for them entrusting that in Jon. Jon is a staple of Atlanta, Georgia, and so I know for him it was one of the honors of his lifetime to be a part of this and to truly rep Georgia.

Spillane: I am excited to continue to scheme with Tamar on what more we can do, and I’m willing to say we’re gonna find some fun stuff to do together. You can bet on us.

Some of the examples of the “to the Walz” viral meme that inspired the convention appearance: