Before he was an out-of-nowhere Republican presidential candidate, Vivek Ramaswamy was spitting bars about small government and laissez-faire capitalism. As an undergrad at Harvard, Ramaswamy was an Eminem-inspired rapper under the stage name “Da Vek.” His song of choice was “Lose Yourself,” which he’d often perform at open mics and other campus events. “I saw myself, honestly, making it big through American capitalism, and that’s why the Eminem story spoke to me,” Ramaswamy said of his hip-hop idol. But his dabble into rap didn’t stop at Eminem—the now 37-year-old toyed with lyrics involving libertarianism, foreshadowing his eventual presidential platform. “I follow my passions,” he said. “They’re not all in politics.”
