Music

Everything We Learned From Kanye’s Deeply, Deeply Confusing Interview With ‘Forbes’

"In our deodorant, in our toothpaste, there are chemicals that affect our ability to be of service to God," West says.

by Joseph Earp  9 July 2020
Kanye West

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A couple of days ago, Kanye West announced that he was planning to run for President this year.

That was surprising for two reasons. First, last time Kanye mentioned his plans for the Presidential race, he specifically said he’d run in 2024, rather than 2020, in order to avoid taking votes away from his then friend, Donald Trump. Secondly, the Presidential race is already underway — it’s just over four months till voting day, and when he made the announcement, Kanye didn’t even appear to have a single public policy.

Well, that’s all changed overnight thanks to a deeply, deeply confusing interview with Forbes. Speaking to staff writer Randall Lane for four hours, Kanye went long on his ambitions, his platform, and why he’s over Trump. Basically, the whole thing was the wildest chat he’s given in some time. Here are the biggest takeaways.

Kanye Is Not Into Trump Anymore

Early in the interview, Kanye says that he’s now totally distanced himself from Trump, mostly because he heard the President retreated into a bunker during the Black Lives Matter protests. “I am taking the red hat off, with this interview,” he tells Lane.

Which isn’t to say that he has only disparaging things to say about his one time political mentor. “Trump is the closest president we’ve had in years to allowing God to still be part of the conversation,” the rapper also notes.

More confusingly still, when Lane notes to Kanye that the rapper’s Presidential campaign is more likely to siphon off votes from Biden rather than Trump, he seems totally fine with that, even if it means a Trump re-election. “I’m not saying Trump’s in my way, he may be a part of my way. And Joe Biden? Like come on man, please. You know? Obama’s special. Trump’s special. We say Kanye West is special. America needs special people that lead. Bill Clinton? Special. Joe Biden’s not special.”

Kanye’s Political Platform Is Very, Very Conservative — And Also Dumb

Kanye spends much of the interview outlining his political platform. His new party is called The Birthday Party — because if he wins, it’s “everybody’s birthday”.

Unsurprisingly, given the trajectory he’s been on over the last few years, the focus of the party is very much on faith. “It’s all about God,” Kanye says at one point. “We need to stop doing things that make God mad.”

Two of the things that make God mad according to Kanye West? Vaccines and Planned Parenthood. “When they say the way we’re going to fix Covid is with a vaccine, I’m extremely cautious. That’s the mark of the beast,” Kanye says. Same goes with abortion. “Planned Parenthoods have been placed inside cities by white supremacists to do the Devil’s work,” he states.

Then there’s all the typical Kanye fucken’ nonsense. Apparently, the rapper wants to model America off the fictional country of Wakanda if he wins. “You got Kanye West, one of the most powerful humans — I’m not saying the most because you got a lot of alien level superpowers and it’s only collectively that we can set it free,” West starts rambling. “Let’s get back to Wakanda… like in the movie in Wakanda when the king went to visit that lead scientist to have the shoes wrap around her shoes.”

So yeah, if it wasn’t already obvious — leftists, Kanye West is not your friend.

Kanye Reckons He’ll Win, Eventually

At several points of the interview, Kanye states that it is inevitable that he will the Presidency. But he also hedges his bets a little. Might be this year, he says, might be 2024. Whichever it is, that’s God’s choice. Which is a pretty good way to make yourself not culpable for your eventual and obvious loss — you can just blame God if you don’t win.

It’s unlikely that Kanye will ever win, of course. Even a country as obsessed with celebrity and chaos as America seems likely to draw the line somewhere. Kanye definitely exists on the other side of that line. I mean, a quote like, “In our deodorant, in our toothpaste, there are chemicals that affect our ability to be of service to God,” is probably wilder than anything that Trump has literally ever said, and that’s only the fifth wildest thing that Kanye said to Forbes.

I hope that’s the case, anyway.