Whenever election season comes around, it’s a safe bet that a politician will try to glean credibility by using a pop song on the campaign trail – only for the star who recorded it to “ban” them from doing so.

The latest example came when biotech multi-millionaire and prospective US Republican candidate Vivek Ramaswamy launched into Eminem’s Lose Yourself on stage at the Iowa State Fair earlier this month.

At least the 38-year-old can claim to be a genuine fan. He picked the 2002 hit as his “life’s theme song” while studying at Harvard in 2006, and often belted it out at open mic nights and karaoke bars.

“I saw myself, honestly, making it big through American capitalism, and that’s why the Eminem story spoke to me,” Mr Ramaswamy recently told Politico.

“He’s growing up in the trailers, with a single mom, and he wants to make it… I didn’t grow up in a trailer, but I also didn’t grow up in the same circumstances that most of my peers at Harvard did either. I aspired to achieve what many of their parents did. It kind of spoke to me, I would say.”