Kanye West has built a career around saying what he wants, including popping off about Bill Cosby being innocent and Jay Z being whack, so it shouldn’t be too shocking that last night at a concert in San Jose, California, he told the audience while he didn’t vote, had he done so, he would have voted for Trump.
In addition to speaking about voting for Trump, West spoke about admiring Trump’s campaign in large part because it was “futuristic,” in that he was able to win despite flouting all accepted rules of decorum for presidential candidates. He added that his victory pointed to the influence of celebrities and reflected a potential for the changing of the guard. He also put forth some radical ideas about upending the way in which our systems operate once a president is elected. Similar to comments Jon Stewart made earlier this week, West said Trump’s victory puts bigotry out in the open, and thus will be easier to dismantle.
West spouting off as a philosopher king is fine of course and he absolutely makes some interesting points, and as he says, he did at least wait until after the election to make his thoughts known, still, given how much people are still hurting, he could have waited longer. A lot longer.
As well, it’s always heard to give credence to wealthy philosophers like West and Stewart, who are able to pontificate on their Utopian thoughts while sitting safely behind their stacks of cash. Meanwhile, real people have to deal with the painful reality of what a government committed to conservative causes rains down on them.
Watch West’s spliced together speeches below or read the transcription:
“I said something that was kind of politically correct. I told you all I didn’t vote, right? But I didn’t tell you, I guess I told you, but if I would have voted, I would have voted on Trump. Now, there’s people I love, who voted for Hillary, and I don’t love them no less because they had their opinion. I love friends that I have that voted on Hillary. My manager, Scooter Braun, voted on Hillary, one of my management team. My other manager, Izzy, I’m gonna assume, voted on Hillary. Everyone said that you voted on Trump, you gotta go back to [unintelligible]
“And guess what? That entire team still put together this show tonight with people with differences of opinion, still put this show together tonight and still came together and made this show for ya’ll. They told me ‘Ye, do not say that out loud, whatever you do, do not say that out loud.’ And I just said it. I wanted to say that before the election and they told me, ‘Do not say that out loud. Whatever you, do not say that.’
“That don’t mean that I don’t think that black lives matter. That don’t mean that I don’t think that I’m a believer in women’s rights, that don’t mean I don’t believe in gay marriage, that don’t mean I don’t believe in those things because that was the guy I would have voted for.
“Run the next song.
[break]
“Do you believe there are people here enjoying, or before I started talking at least, a Kanye West show that voted for Trump? By a show of screams, do you believe that there are people at a Kanye West show that voted for Trump? Not, oh it sound differently than before, huh? It sounds different. But why, why did we boo the first time on something that wasn’t, ‘Hey do you like him or do you like Trump?’ That wasn’t what I asked. I asked you, to give me your facts. Because the internet was giving you their facts based on what you wanted to hear, and a lot of you guys got blindsided.
“How’d that make you, how’d that you think though? The fact that I just asked an undeniable question, that, in most music situations, you have the Democrats always [unintelligible], the Democrats were considered to be more liberal, the Democrats are supposed to be more futuristic in their approach, the Democrats are supposed to be, have more empathy and be more about the people, and that relates directly to music and it also relates to celebrity and the idea, the idea of what music does for you. Democrat is like music to your ears or something.
“By your voices, do you believe, what percentage of people here, and by the way, I’m not setting you all up to be like, I’m not setting you up with no type of bullshit. What I’m saying is, what percentage of people here do you think voted for Trump? Do you think it was two people here? Do you think maybe it was 100 people? Do you think maybe it was 1,000 people? Out of the 15,000 people here? No, I’m asking you? What do you really believe? One person just said, two people. What do you really believe? What do you really believe? What do you really believe? What do you really believe? What do you really believe? What do you really believe?
“I haven’t talked about anybody’s stances on anything. I haven’t talked about any quote that anybody gave from either side. That’s not what I’m talking about. That’s not what I’m asking you. What I’m asking you, is what you really believe. I put something that I would bet on, I bet that it might be 20 percent or maybe even 30 percent of this very audience right here that might have voted for Trump. I bet you 15 percent of ’em, fifty percent of them would never say that at a Kanye West show because of the climate right now.
“And they don’t know, they might think I’m like, “Oh they voted for Trump, ya’ll should go ahead and…’ It’s the opposite of that. People got the right to vote for whoever they want to vote for. That’s the right to vote. That is our right. I did not vote.
“”Aw no, the Saint Pablo ticket sales is going down now. Aw naw, the tee shirts, aw naw. You just got out of jail, Ye. You had to deal with Taylor Swift shit for seven years, now you’re gonna go and say some…Naw Ye, don’t say shit and don’t step out.’ Naw, fuck that, bro, that’s the reality. ‘Well ‘Ye, how you gonna expect people to vote for you, if you ain’t even vote?’
“I’m concerned not about the idea of being president or the actual job of it, I’m concerned about putting out a concept of how to do the job in a new way. And if no one will do it in that way, I will take position in 2020 and do it myself.
“‘Oh you ain’t gonna get it now because of what you just said.’ It was proven that it didn’t matter what nobody just said. It doesn’t matter. It might have been a reporter that wanted to use this as a opportunity to say, ‘Oh, this rapper..’ Because they call me a rapper to try and say that I’m less than a thinker, less than a philosopher. Because rappers are the philosophers of our now. Rappers are the influencers of our now. The celebrities are the influencers of our now. Just look at the president. He wasn’t even in politics and he won.
“That shows you, not if you’re mad about him winning, that shows you the level of possibility that’s out there, if you go and find information and don’t believe everything the fucking internet is telling you. There’s possibilities. There’s possibilities inside of books. There’s possibilities when you call your grandmother. Motherfuckers deal with the internet [unintelligible] than to call their mother or their grandmother to get information that had you wrong as fuck, like everyone was a couple days ago. Do you ever want to be blindsided like that?
[break]
[Unintelligible] I trivialized what I was saying about our president’s approach to the campaign when I said it was entertaining. I don’t think his approach was just entertaining because that trivializes it. I actually think his approach was absolutely genius because it fucking worked.
“Oh shit, you threw something at me. Does somebody else want to throw something at me? But you know what? I got the power to get that guy kicked out, whatever, roughed up. No, stay here, what do you believe, that’s your opinion. Express your opinion, bro’. Express your opinion. Thank you, that’s a woman right there, saying ‘I love you,’after I just said, that there was things that I liked about Trump’s campaign. That’s not supposed to happen, right? That’s not supposed to happen, right? Case in point.
“All in all, we don’t know, I guess we’re just not going to sell out the rest of the tour now. There’s methods, non-political methods to speaking that I like, that I feel are very futuristic and that style and that method of communication has proven that it can beat a politically correct way of communication, and I fuck with that.
“You threw something at me! And now he on the side of Yeezy.
“I don’t say 2020 because out of disrespect to our president, at all. I’m not saying, ‘Aw man, that just mean anyone can win.’ That’s not what I say when I say 2020. I’m just saying I got some ideas about the way we should connect our ideas. That we should use opposite parties, that the Republicans, that the Democrats, that everyone that ran that had an idea that people agreed with should be the collective ideas that are used to run the country. And that should mean more. So there’s things that Benjamin Carson believes in that I believe in. I think that Benjamin Carson should still be a consultant. I think that Hillary Clinton should still be a consultant. I think that Bill Clinton should still be a consultant. Like Obama said, I think Obama should still be a consultant. Instead of, ‘Oh, I don’t fuck with your principals so now I’m not going to give you no information that can help you help all of us.’
“Make sure this dude who threw the Yeezy get the Yeezy back. Hey, we gotta get this security [unintelligible] thanks.
“Man, and you know what, also? I’m not saying this to diss celebrity and that, at all, particularly on the Democratic side. That’s cool. I just like, I hate the fact that because I’m a celebrity, everybody told me not to say that I loved the debates. I loved his approach. It be like, white people that’s racist, running around saying n****r now, right? Because, and I….if people are racist and they feel more inspired to say how they feel, then they exposing themselves, bro, and this what I’m saying. It’s already the beginning of change. Sometimes things that you might think are bad have to happen in order for change to f*****g happen. Sometimes, you may not get your way to really understand what to do in the future to be able to get your way.”
[break]
[Unintelligible] to black people, stop focusing on racism. This world is racist, okay? Let’s stop being distracted to focus on that as much. It’s just a fucking fact. We are in a racist country. Period.
