Oh dear god: Some takeaways from Kanye's latest interview
We must admit something, dear reader: When it comes to the never-ending saga of Kanye West, we are at a crossroads. Honestly, we’d love nothing more than to quietly chuckle to ourselves at the intentional antics of someone who announces a presidential bid in the same fashion that Michael Scott once “declared bankruptcy.” However, ignoring a particularly distressing interview from an entertainer apparently isn’t an option for an entertainment blog. So, here we are.
The performer recently spoke with Randall Lane of Forbes about, presumably, his interest in the White House, which he unceremoniously reiterated via Twitter on July 4 when he announced his intention to run for president in the 2020 election. We say “presumably” because the lengthy conversation takes a number of hairpin turns and gets occasionally muddled by disjointed observations and, at one point, a freestyle verse in lieu of an actual response. To be fair, there are genuinely informative tidbits here, like his criticisms of the binary political system (mainly the Democrats) and him withdrawing his support for Trump (for the most part). However, you have to wade through a lot of fairly confounding statements to get to the clearer moments.
We’re going to indulge in just a little bit of naiveté and hope that this round-up of some of the more head-scratching highlights from West’s chat with Forbes serves as our final word on his odd, unofficial attempt at gaining unfettered power. It’s looking unlikely, but we can dream, can’t we? In the meantime, you’ll want to read Lane’s full interview to get a more detailed picture. Here are five of the more, uh, enlightening moments.
West believes that a COVID-19 vaccine would symbolize “the mark of the beast”
“They want to put chips inside of us, they want to do all kinds of things, to make it where we can’t cross the gates of heaven. I’m sorry when I say they, the humans that have the Devil inside them.” Kanye shared this view after revealing that he was sick with coronavirus in February.
Black History Month is “torture porn”
“That is torture porn because when that comes up what we do is we see—and by the way, if I get that vibe—that’s the process and we are going to a beautiful, uplifting, fun, creative process as a people, as America collectively, and show the world how great we are. So here we go. Black History Month every year they gotta remind us about the fact that we couldn’t vote, they meaning white supremacy construct, and I said that with the CT at the end, I knew what was I was talking about…Our minds are so much more infinite than what’s coming across TikTok or Instagram, what’s trying to influence our children and the next generation of who we are.”
He’s walking—not running—for president
“As I speak to you for what a political campaign—a political walk, as I told you, because I’m not running, I’m walking. I’m not running, we the people are walking. We’re not running anymore, we’re not running, we’re not excited—we are energized, Someone can say, ‘Hey, I got a brand new car for you, it’s across the street and you get so excited you run across the street and get hit by a car trying to run to your new car. That’s how they control the Black community, through emotions, they get us excited, we’re so excited, but then for 400 years the change doesn’t truly happen.”
His bid doesn’t involve actually developing policies
“I don’t know if I would use the word policy for the way I would approach things. I don’t have a policy when I went to Nike and designed Yeezy and went to Louis and designed a Louis Vuitton at the same time. It wasn’t a policy, it was a design. We need to innovate the design to be able to free the mind at this time.”
Still, he’s certain of one thing: He won’t be running as a Democrat or Republican, but for the Birthday Party
Per Lane:
He says he definitely plans to run in 2020, versus his original plan in 2024. The campaign slogan: “YES!” His running mate? Michelle Tidball, an obscure preacher from Wyoming. And why the Birthday Party? “Because when we win, it’s everybody’s birthday.”