MSNBC anchor Ari Melber has built a reputation for weaving rap lyrics into his broadcasts, creating a solid list of contacts along the way. Simply put, rappers love Melber. He consistently shows love to everyone from Tupac Shakur and The Notorious B.I.G. to 21 Savage and Mos Def. Some he’s even hosted on his popular show, The Beat.
Last week, Melber managed to quote Chicago rapper Chief Keef and his 2012 single “I Don’t Like” while discussing some recent comments made by GOP Senator Lisa Murkowski. In a clip Melber shared on Instagram, Murkowski is asked about Trump’s “Big Beautiful Bill,” to which she replied, “I don’t like that.”
She added “there are Americans that are not going to be advantaged by this bill. I don’t like that.” Melber had a few things he didn’t like either. “To paraphrase Chief Keef, cutting health care, that’s something I don’t like,” he said. “Boosting the deficit, that’s something I don’t like.”
Speaking to AllHipHop, Melber explained further, “Sen. Murkowski literally admitted she didn’t like the GOP budget hurting people—but voted for it anyway,” Melber tells AllHipHop. “That captures what so many think is wrong with politics. Listening to her say that as the news broke, I immediately thought of Chief Keef. That song captures the raw, human disgust with anything fake or phony.
“It’s a banger for that energy as much as the lyrics (and beloved remix). On top of that, Murkowski’s move is also something many people don’t like! And we noticed that in the many comments on the clip, where Chief Keef fans—and people who may not watch cable news —weighed in on everything from political hypocrisy to Keef’s artistry to dissecting words and lyrics.”
The video snippet blew up on TikTok, with more than a thousand netizens weighing in on Melber’s comments.
“Bro listens to chief keef on his drive back home,” one person wrote, while another said, “Quoting Sosa on live TV is wilddd!” Some joked he’d “gentrified” O-Block, the infamous neighborhood where Chief Keef and other Chicago rappers like Lil Durk and the late King Von frequented.
Others were impressed by Melber’s choice, saying things like, “This why chief a fckn legend wtf in this time of s### going on ain’t no way he got quoted real GOAT” and “They got new reporters using Sosa lyrics… new age yall.”
Melber’s keen ear for impactful rap lyrics has served him well. In 2022, he analyzed JAY-Z’s “God Did” verse as a way to examine America’s war on drugs, which featured a clip of Mike Wallace interviewing Louis Farrakhan on 60 Minutes in 1996. The interview is referenced by JAY-Z on the track.
Melber then explored how Hov’s verse encapsulated America’s failed drug war, highlighting several of JAY-Z’s bars lyrics that touched on the legalization of marijuana and Roc Nation’s Emory Jones serving 10 years for drug dealing.
“Those lines quickly go from prohibition to a war on street drugs associated with minorities … to fentanyl, a huge driver of drug problems and deaths, which politicians do not treat criminally the same way they attack the drugs that Jay or others once sold,” Melber said at the time. “I can tell you corporations have made over $10 billion selling addictive painkillers legally, so that’s a contrast.”
The breakdown was so profound, JAY-Z repurposed it soon after for the track “HOV DID,” which he shared on Tidal, Apple Music and Spotify.
“Seeing JAY-Z release our report on his verse as a track is definitely a first—and an honor,” he told me in August 2022. “JAY-Z sharing the segment with listeners also elevates the context for posterity—turning a Beat report into a kind of audio guide to accompany his dense, amazing verse about his life, and the arbitrariness of the drug war. And as Jay might say, he sampled my voice, and turned it to ‘a hot song.’ As for whether I was using my voice right, that’s for others to decide.”
Melber was nominated for a 2025 Emmy for Outstanding Live Interview for his conversation with Trump advisor Stephen Miller earlier this year, while The Beat with Ari Melber viewership ranges anywhere from 750,000 to 1.2 million viewers per episode. We like that.
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