- Culture
- 26 Mar 20
Kanye West has said that people making assumptions about his political views reminded him of being racially profiled.
"You’re black, so you’re a Democrat"
The rapper, entrepreneur, and possible future president has faced an uproar in the past for his support of President Donald Trump and for wearing his ‘Make America Great Again’ cap in public.
In a new interview with The Wall Street Journal Kanye West said he maintains his support for Trump and added that people’s reactions to him doing so have a racial context.
“It reminded me of how I felt as a black guy before I was famous, when I would walk in a restaurant and people would look at you like you were going to steal something,” he said. "This is your place, Ye, don’t talk about apparel. This is your place, Ye, you’re black, so you’re a Democrat.”
Elsewhere in the interview West spoke about how he worked closely with Trump to help free A$AP Rocky from prison for aggravated assault in Sweden last year.
In other news, Ye and his wife Kim Kardashian West hit the headlines last week when a new video was leaked that appeared to show that Taylor Swift did not consent to a controversial line about her in Ye’s 2016 song ‘Famous’.
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Over the weekend, a full 23-minute video of the West-Swift phone call appeared online, and appeared to vindicate Swift's account.
A large part of the conversation focuses on an alternative version of the lyric - "Taylor Swift might owe me sex" - which Swift argues against.
If West releases that version, she says, "the feminists are going to come out".
It is unclear how the footage made its way online, but it seems to have done little to persuade die-hard fans of who was in the right: Swift's fans say she has been vindicated, while West's maintain her approval of the song was implicit.