Kanye West Plans To 'Walk' Into The Presidential Election

Since 2015, Kanye West has upped his political commentary. He had always spoken of running in a presidential election, specifically in 2020, but when the time came, he didn’t insert himself in the race. Although West’s sudden change of heart wasn’t shocking, it seems that we assumed wrong about his change of heart at all. West recently made an appearance at the Fast Company Innovation Festival in New York. At the event, he was a panelist along with Steven Smith, a Yeezy footwear designer. The conversation switched to one about credibility, specifically about the rapper not getting his credit as an entrepreneur. West spoke on how he feels that his work as a billionaire is unnoticed by other business officials. Jokingly, he goes on to say he’ll even change his name himself, in order to get the credit, he deserves.

“When I did Forbes, I showed them a $890 million receipt and they still didn't say 'billionaire.' They don't want us to know that we can buy land; they don't want us to have the 100 percent ownership like I have at Yeezy,” West exclaimed. “When people say it's crass to call yourself a billionaire, I say I might legally change my name to Christian Genius Billionaire Kanye West for a year until y'all understand exactly what it is. It will be on the license plate."

Afterwards, the audience was graced with West’s political commentary that we’ve all grown to have a love-hate relationship with. His outlandish comments turned into his political stances and campaign ideas. The audience seemed to find the remarks funny, but Yeezy reminded them just how serious he was.

“What y’all laughing at? I’m not going to run, I’m going to walk. What they’re saying is Kanye’s crazy — one and three African Americans are in jail and all the celebrities are in jail also because they can’t say nothing because they’re so scared,” he stated.

There is no doubt that he made some great points. In fact, West was able to explain his point of view in detail by comparing his experience as a designer. He single handedly gave an analysis on how African American voters are targeted during elections, furthermore, how important our vote is compared to the issues we stand for.

West said, “[A]s black designers out of America, you can’t have an opinion. You can only be the consumer… you can only be a demographic. And that a boardroom says ‘this is the black demographic…This is who you’re supposed to vote on. This is what you’re supposed to buy. This is your Popeye’s chicken sandwich you’re supposed to eat on. I have seen the boardroom and back. And it’s completely the concept of a demographic.”

Overall, West hasn’t confirmed whether he is seriously going to “walk” into the elections, but he definitely has our attention. There’s just no telling how long it will be until his election joke actually becomes reality.