Hip-hop music first bubbled up from the underground in the early 1980s when Ronald Wilson Reagan was occupying our White House, so it should come as no surprise that there are approximately three million terrible old school Ronald Reagan novelty hip-hop songs. In fact, there are so many terrible old school Ronald Reagan novelty hip-hop songs, I feel they should all have their own genre. I hereby dub such artistic creations “Ron-hop”. In honor of President’s Day, I would now like to offer you the official Crawdaddy! field guide to notable entries in Ron-hop.

One of the earliest stabs at Ron-hop was taken by professional Reagan impressionist Rich Little. Released in 1982, “President’s Rap” sampled Tom Tom Club’s “Genius Of Love” just like every other hip-hop release at the time and laid over dialogue from Little’s The First Family Rides Again comedy album. That’s right; there’s no literal rapping on “President’s Rap”, but the strength of Tom Tom Club’s loop combined with the incredible accuracy of Little’s impressions made for a landmark moment in Ron-hop.

“Simpsons” fans undoubtedly remember the fifth season episode “Homer Loves Flanders” in which Homer tortures the family with his “Rappin’ Ronnie Reagan” cassette during an extremely long car ride (”You know somethin’? He did say ‘well’ a lot!”). The specific song the show seemed to be parodying there is “Ronnie’s Rap”, a 1986 joint by Ron & The D.C. Crew. Brimming with spunk and energy, “Ronnie’s Rap” stands as the definitive feel-good Ron-hop jam of its era. The Reagan of this song strikes a nice balance  between playfully boastful b-boy and cuddly Republican actor from California.

Of course, it’s possible the “Simpsons” writers were also taking a slight jab at cast member Harry Shearer with the “Rappin’ Ronnie” gag. Turns out the voice of Mr. Burns actually made his own Ron-hop song in the early ’80s for a cable television volume called “Likely Stories”. If you think that’s crazy, wait until you hear the best part: the video is clay animation.

When queried as to what year his White House party bumper dropped, Mr. Shearer said his “best guess would be ‘81.” If true, that would make Harry Shearer’s offering the earliest example of Ron-hop so far. Is it too soon to dub Harry the Grandmaster Flash of Ron-hop?

As far as anyone knows, Reathal Bean & The Doonesbury Break Crew had nothing to do with the Gary Trudeau comic strip they appear to have pilfered part of their name from. The DBC were a theatrical political humor group who entered the Ron-hop game in 1984 with “Rap Master Ronnie”. You have to give them credit for crafting such an endearing video on a budget of about three dollars. Also, the lines about Mr. T and Debbie Boone are pretty hilarious. I wonder if they had to rent that limo or if the director owned it.

1984 also gave us Ron-hop’s strangest/scariest entry in “See The Light/Feel The Heat” by Air Force 1. A collection of actual Gipper soundbytes concerning nuclear arms, it’s a little hard imagining anyone getting down on the dance floor to this weird apocalyptic jam (and, just like “President’s Rap”, it never even rhymes!). Famed studio musician Jack Waldman co-wrote, co-produced, and played on “See The Light.” And you thought his best work was with Klaus Nomi.

A slightly more fun piece of nuclear-related Ron-hop is this newer entry by intromix entitled “Begin Bombing” (although, again, no rhyming). “Begin Bombing” was crafted just last year, two decades after Ronnie left office and just four years after the GOP gangsta dropped his microphone for the last time. That just goes to show how enduring/endearing the concept of Ron-hop is to some people. The real Ronald Wilson Reagan may have been an out-of-touch jellybean eater whose name was an anagram for Evil Anglo Warlord, but there was just something about the guy (his hair? his unyielding whiteness?) that lent itself perfectly to goofball rap songs.

Personally, it warms my heart to know some folks are still keeping the Reagan rapping flame alive in this post-Bonzo world. Yet Reagan isn’t the only presidential rap superstar on the scene today. The rapid development of home studio technology in recent years has allowed Internet musicians to whip up all sorts of strange Commander-in-chief parodies.

Case in point? William Howard Taft calling out all the Carpetbaggers in “Forgot About Taft”.