Barack Obama, 59, had a confession to make: the 44th president of the United States has had help from his daughters Malia, 22, and Sasha, 19, to curate his famous year-end music playlists. The former POTUS explained how his music recommendations are always so up-to-date during an interview on The Dec. 4 episode of the Snapchat show Good Luck America, hosted by Peter Hamby.
“My year-end playlists, those are the fresh cuts. And there, I will confess that I do consult with Malia and Sasha throughout the year,” Obama admitted. “I’m constantly listening, you know, to their music. Sometimes by request and sometimes, just because that’s just what’s blaring in the house.” In a teasing tone, he added, “I pick up on some trends.”
Barack then revealed Sasha is “more protective of her music.” The father of two continued, “There’s certain things on SoundCloud — She has a like a private playlist. She won’t share all of it with me because she’s not sure I’m hip enough to handle it.” But Obama assured that he is indeed hip. “Nah, man, I’m keepin’ up, for an old guy,” he added.
At the end of 2019, Obama put a number of modern hits on his “Favorite Music Of 2019” list: Summer Walker‘s “Playing Games,” Lizzo‘s “Juice,” Solange‘s “Binz,” J. Cole‘s “Middle Child,” DaBaby‘s “Suge,” Dominik Fike‘s “3 Nights” and so forth — you can see the full list above! While we’re still waiting on Obama to put out his 2020 list, he did come through with a Summer 2020 playlist that included even more hits from young artists like Billie Eilish‘s “My Future” and Princess Nokia‘s “Gemini.”
Obama did reveal amid the interview, however, put one playlist all together by himself: his “A Promised Land” playlist to accompany the former president’s memoir of the same name, which was released on Nov. 17. The list includes artists closer to Obama’s generation, like Frank Sinatra and Bruce Springsteen.
Obama also gushed over his daughters, who are currently taking university classes at home due to the pandemic, during an interview with InStyle in November. The previous commander-of-chief revealed his favorite qualities about Sasha, who is currently a student at the University of Michigan, and Malia, a student at Harvard University, and made it clear that he’s such a proud dad during the sweet interview.