If there wasn’t enough religio-political news already happening these days, famed rapper Kanye West, on the 4th of July, announced he was running for president.
In that Kanye’s somewhat recent dive-in to evangelical Christianity now seems to make him a talking head for God — judging by mainstream press coverage of his proclamations and activities — anything he decides to do has religious importance. Mix that with politics and you have headlines.
When he explained it all to Forbes magazine during a 4-hour interview, God was very much part of the equation. The interview sounds like an odd stream-of-consciousness monologue, which the reporter tried to organize into a coherent piece.
Here’s what Forbes said:
Kanye West’s Fourth of July declaration, via Tweet, that he was running for president lit the internet on fire, even as pundits were trying to discern how serious he was. Over the course of four rambling hours of interviews on Tuesday, the billionaire rapper turned sneaker mogul revealed:
Eight of the rapper’s main quotes were then listed for readers as news-you-can-use bullet points. Then there was this:
He has no campaign apparatus of any kind. His advisors right now, he says, are the two people who notably endorsed him on the Fourth: his wife, Kim Kardashian-West, and Elon Musk, of whom he says, “We’ve been talking about this for years.” (Adds West: “I proposed to him to be the head of our space program.”)
An hour into the interview, the hedging was done: 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.”
This was not the only coverage, of course. Jack Jenkins for Religion News Service tried to make sense of it all from a religion-news perspective.
(RNS) — Kanye West is running for president, and he believes God told him to do it…
West is also no stranger to matters of faith: In addition to releasing the religion-themed album “Jesus Is King” in October 2019, West staged several “Sunday Services” throughout the country last year that featured gospel hymns alongside rap music.
“I love Jesus Christ. I love Christianity,” West said last year.
But in his interview with Forbes, West — who said that he has never voted before, and has yet to take any formal steps to get his name on ballots come November — hinted that his fledgling presidential run may be his most overt fusion of faith and politics yet, with religion impacting everything from his decision to run to his views on vaccines.
West doesn’t make sense a lot of the time, so it’d be tough for any reporter to try to get a coherent thought out of the singer’s stream of consciousness.
West also said he believes God “appoints” the president, a view shared by many conservative Christian supporters of Trump, such as Paula White, the special adviser to the White House’s Faith and Opportunity Initiative at the Office of Public Liaison.
“Let’s see if the appointing is at 2020 or if it’s 2024 — because God appoints the president,” West told Forbes. “If I win in 2020 then it was God’s appointment. If I win in 2024 then that was God’s appointment.”
Actually, if you follow the work of political scientist Ryan Burge — on Twitter, here at GetReligion and also at RNS — you know that this issue of the role God plays in America’s leadership is rather complex. Take the near-messianic language used to describe the campaign and administration of President Barack Obama.
For more background on that, see this recent GetReligion post: “Thinking with Ryan Burge: God 'anointing' presidents – a Trump thing or an American thing?”
Meanwhile, back to Kanye and his previously warm relationship with this White House.
West now says that he no longer backs Donald Trump because of the “mess” the country is in now.
However, West did praise Trump’s faith affiliations when explaining why he supported the president in the first place: “Trump is the closest president we’ve had in years to allowing God to still be part of the conversation.”
West also reflected a view regarding prayer in schools that is popular among conservative Christians, insisting God be brought back into classrooms.
“Reinstate in God’s state, in God’s country, the fear and love of God in all schools and organizations and you chill the fear and love of everything else. So that was a plan by the Devil — to have our kids committing suicide at an all-time high by removing God, to have murders in Chicago at an all-time high because the human beings working for the Devil removed God and prayer from the schools. That means more drugs, more murders, more suicide.”
Well, he doesn’t make much theological or political sense, but Kanye still had a lot to say. He touted prayer as the answer to coronavirus but said COVID-19 vaccines are “the mark of the beast.” He seems to have his mind focused on end-times scenarios.
He then referenced what appeared to be a debunked conspiracy theory that Bill Gates and others want to put microchips in people to track their movements.
West went on to suggest that such efforts could bar people from ascending to heaven.
“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,” West said. “I’m sorry when I say they, the humans that have the Devil inside them. And the sad thing is that, the saddest thing is that we all won’t make it to heaven, that there’ll be some of us that do not make it. Next question.”
If Kanye was president, of course, then you know who would be First Lady?
That would be the ultimate in reality shows for Kim Kardashian-West, don’t you think?
Finally, there’s The Guardian, which suggests that it’s all a publicity stunt.
West’s latest move is a continuation of his storied career, with its chameleon-like musical style, collaborations with venerable fashion houses such as Louis Vuitton, and self-aggrandizing, gnomic and problematic pronouncements – such as a casual assertion that enslavement is a “choice” or his professed admiration for Donald Trump’s “dragon energy”. West arguably broke with Trump in 2018, and in his 2019 Coachella performance and the release of his album Jesus Is King, it seemed that he was moving in an overtly spiritual direction…
The armchair political pundits and celebrity news site TMZ have been quick to suggest West is in a manic phase; he has been candid about his bipolar disorder. But in a long interview with Forbes, he appears to be sincere.
In terms of his religious commitment, Kanye has put his money where his mouth is. Politically, he has not. Were it me, I’d take his religious pronouncements seriously, in terms of what he’s saying about his own beliefs. But in terms of running for office, nope.
That doesn’t mean that anything he says about the White House will be ignored by the press.
Kanye has been an engaging religious newsmaker for several years now. I’m sure that will continue, one way or another.