Sean 'Diddy' Combs mingles with the audience after delivering a spine-tingling appeal for Americans to go out and vote today for Barack Obama. Combs was speaking at the Florida Memorial University in Miami on Sunday. - Janet Silvera Photo

Miami, Florida

"Rosa Parks sat so Martin Luther could walk, Martin walked so Obama could run, Obama is running so that our children can fly."

These were the only words that the man dubbed president of hip hop, Jay Z, had to utter to cause the crowd in the gymnasium at the Florida Memorial University in Miami to erupt on Sunday afternoon.

Become part of history

The multi-millionaire rapper and producer, along with singer and queen of the same genre, Mary J Blige, founder of Bad Boy Records, Sean 'Diddy' Combs, Def Jam founder Russell Simmonds and Jesse Jackson Jr shared centrestage to urge young Americans to change the country's landscape and become part of history.

While urging the large group not to allow the four-hour long lines to scare them, Mary J Blige lauded Barack Obama as a true example of what their children can do in the future.

"Hang out for the four hours, that you may have to hang," she encouraged. "We are kings and queens of this Earth. Do not let our future be placed in somebody else's hands," she pleaded.

No apology

Making no apology for supporting her black brother, Blige was careful to say, "Go out and make a difference, not because he is black, but because he is qualified."

With the electricity with which she charged the room, the voltage was enough to herald Sean 'Diddy' Combs to the stage, who entered dancing to the sound of rap music and shouting at the same time, "Can you feel it?"

Echoing the sentiments of all the other speakers, Combs reiterated emphatically, "Two more days to go," while declaring he wasn't an emotional person but that when he reminisced on the first time he heard Barack Obama, he had goose pimples.

With his hero on the verge of making history if he becomes the United States' 44th president, Combs said when he was a child he wanted to be a garbage man, because he had no hope of aspiring to become president, while his son recently said he wanted to be a rapper.

"If your child wants to be president, it is now a reality," Combs said.

janet.silvera@gleanerjm.com

Co-founder of Def Jam, Russell Simmonds, addressing young adults at the Florida Memorial University in Miami on Sunday