Rapper Kanye West on Thursday said he one day would helm the Oval Office, a suggestion made during a lengthy interview ahead of the release of his gospel album.
The 42-year-old artist told Zane Lowe of Apple Music’s Beats 1 show that his support for US President Donald Trump had been a way to razz Democrats.
“For the greatest artist in human existence to put a red hat on was God’s practical joke to all liberals. Like: ‘No! Not Kanye!’” said the performer, who has converted to Christianity in recent months.
West also said he would one day be commander-in-chief: “There will be a time when I will be the president of the US, and I will remember ... any founder that didn’t have the capacity to understand culturally what we were doing.”
It was unclear to whom the artist was referring.
West said he asked his collaborators on his ninth studio album, Jesus Is King, to abstain from premarital sex, also saying he suffered from a porn addiction that he has since kicked.
“Some people drown themselves in drugs and I drown myself in my addiction: sex,” West said, adding that he discovered pornography at a young age and became addicted to sex after his mother died in 2007.
The artist known for missing his own deadlines then promised a 10th album, entitled Jesus Is Born, would drop at Christmas.
With Jesus Is King, expected to be released yesterday, the Chicago-raised artist is set to release music with a stronger message of evangelical salvation than his past gospel-tinged work.
It follows a year that has seen West play minstrel, touring the country for impromptu “Sunday Service” performances, a concert series featuring gospel choirs and heavy Christian vibes.
He first publicly performed a Sunday Service at the Coachella festival in April, having previously held them only for select guests, mostly celebrities.
West’s California preacher Adam Tyson recently said on faith-focused podcast Apologia Radio that the artist, who burst onto the scene in the early 2000s as a producer for rap titans like Jay Z, believes he has been “radically saved.”
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