On July 4, rapper Kanye West dropped perhaps the most bizarre twist in the story of 2020, when he announced that he would be running for US president later this year.
Writing to his 29.4 million Twitter followers, the 43-year-old announced his intentions on running a campaign between now and November in a bid to become POTUS.
Writing on Twitter, the hip-hop star wrote:
"We must now realize the promise of America by trusting God, unifying our vision, and building our future. I am running for president of the United States."
As of this writing, his initial tweet has received over 1.2 million likes, over 530,000 retweets, and plenty of comments from fans saying they can count on his vote.
Naturally, it looks like Kanye's wife and potential First Lady Kim Kardashian is fully supportive of her husband's campaign, and Tesla and SpaceX CEO Elon Musk also replied saying: "You have my full support!"
Now, in his first interviews since making the potentially historic announcement, Kanye has provided a glimpse into his own personal beliefs, his ambitions for the nation, and what the people of America can expect from him as their president.
Per Forbes, the chart-topper spent hours "rambling" about his campaign, Trump, Biden, and everything in between.
Speaking out on Tuesday (July 7), West revealed that he is definitely running for president in 2020, and under a new banner called "the Birthday Party". When asked why he chose this name, West said: "Because when we win, it’s everybody’s birthday."
West also revealed that despite receiving a lot of guidance from Musk, his running mate is in fact Michelle Tidball - a preacher from Wyoming.
And despite sounding like a PR stunt for a new album or special two-hour episode of KUWTK, West says he is 100% serious about winning, revealing that he has lost confidence in President Trump.
West told Forbes: "It looks like one big mess to me. I don’t like that I caught wind that [Trump] hid in the bunker."
As well as revealed that he had never voted before in his life, Kanye also opened up about his 2018 visit to the White House in which he wore a MAGA hat and hugged Trump.
"One of the main reasons I wore the red hat as a protest to the segregation of votes in the Black community," West said, adding: "Also, other than the fact that I like Trump hotels and the saxophones in the lobby."
West also opened up on a lot of important issues that he would have to address if he were to become POTUS.
Firstly, speaking about abortion, the rapper said: "I am pro-life because I’m following the word of the Bible."
And when asked to talk about his foreign policy, the 'Famous' singer said: "I haven’t developed it yet. I’m focused on protecting America, first, with our great military. Let’s focus on ourselves first."
And speaking about taxes, West admitted that there's still some reading to do there: "I haven’t done enough research on that yet. I will research that with the strongest experts that serve God and come back with the best solution. And that will be my answer for anything that I haven’t researched. I have the earplug in and I’m going to use that earplug."
But perhaps the most bizarre segment of the interview was when Kayne explained that his vision for the White House under his command is to recreate that of what is seen in Wakanda - the fictional African nation featured in the Marvel Cinematic Universe.
West said:
"A lot of Africans do not like the movie [Black Panther] and representation of themselves in…Wakanda. But I’m gonna use the framework of Wakanda right now because it’s the best explanation of what our design group is going to feel like in the White House… That is a positive idea: 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.
"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. Just the amount of innovation that can happen, the amount of innovation in medicine — like big pharma — we are going to work, innovate, together.
"This is not going to be some Nipsey Hussle being murdered, they’re doing a documentary, we have so many soldiers that die for our freedom, our freedom of information, that there is a cure for AIDS out there, there is going to be a mix of big pharma and holistic."
Comic book inspiration aside, West did make some very poignant comments during the interview.
When asked about police brutality, he said: "One of my to-do lists is to end police brutality. The police are people too. To end laws that don’t make sense.
"Like, in the George Floyd case, there was a Black guy that went to jail and it was his first day on the force (J Alexander Kueng). So if it’s your first day on the force and it’s your training day, and this OG accredited cop with 18 violations already starts filing out, are you going to jump in front of that person and lose your job that same day? Especially in this climate when 40,000 people lost their jobs?
"This man was put in a position where — and also he probably didn’t realize that the cop was going to take it that far, he probably was so scared, in shock, paralyzed, like so many Black people.
"I'm one of the few Black people that would speak openly like this."
The rapper also addressed the rumors circulating that he was only running for president as a means of detracting black voters away from Biden. Responding to the claims, West said:
"That is a form of racism and white supremacy and white control to say that all Black people need to be Democrat and to assume that me running is me splitting the vote."
He added: "I was told that if I voted on Trump my music career would be over. I was threatened into being in one party. I was threatened as a celebrity into being in one party.
"I was threatened as a Black man into the Democratic party. And that’s what the Democrats are doing, emotionally, to my people. Threatening them to the point where this white man can tell a Black man if you don’t vote for me, you’re not Black."
I guess we'll have to see what the future hold for Kanye - stranger things have happened this year...