Kanye West has made it clear that he prefers Donald Trump’s presidency to Barack Obama’s. He gave that opinion during a wide-ranging interview with GQ that was published this week.
“I buy real estate. It’s better now than when Obama was in office,” said West. “They don’t teach you in school about buying property. They teach you how to become somebody’s property.”
West has been a staunch supporter of Trump ever since he began his presidency in 2017 but admitted that he didn’t vote in the past election. West says things will be different for him this coming November, however.
The rapper appeared to bring up Hillary Clinton losing to Trump and being pressured to support her when she ran for the Oval Office.
“No, I’m definitely voting this time, and we know who I’m voting on, and I’m not going to be told by the people around me and the people that have their agenda that my career is going to be over,” West stated.
“Because guess what: I’m still here. ‘Jesus Is King’ was No. 1. I was told my career would end if I wasn’t with her,” he added. “What kind of campaign is that anyway? That’s like if Obama’s campaign was ‘I’m with black.’ What’s the point of being a celebrity if you can’t have an opinion? Everybody make their own opinion.”
Some might say that West’s career and overall brand looks nothing like it did when he came onto the scene in the late ’90s as a producer, then as a rapper in the early aughts.
After his debut album “The College Dropout,” he was celebrated in parts of the Black community for his unique production style and lyrics that were part braggadocio, part socially conscious.
West also got credit from a lot of Black folks for his outspoken nature, particularly when he criticized George W. Bush’s response to the damage Hurricane Katrina caused in 2005.
“George Bush doesn’t care about black people,” said West back then during a televised event called “A Concert for Hurricane Relief.”
In his GQ interview, West implied that he regrets saying those words.
“[It] is a victim statement,” he said about his Bush comment. “This white person didn’t do something for us. That is stemmed in victim mentality. … Black people are controlled by emotions through the media. The media puts musicians, artists, celebrities, actors in a position to be the face of the race, that really don’t have any power and really are just working for white people.”
“We emotionally connect to someone of our color on TV and feel that this person is speaking for us,” West continued. “I will not be told who I’m gonna vote on because of my color.”
