Kanye West implies he plans to vote for Donald Trump in 2020 – NBC News

Rapper Kanye West made known who he plans to vote for in the November presidential election.

West, who faced backlash after he wore a red "Make America Great Again" hat, which he said made him feel like Superman, to an October 2018 Oval Office meeting with President Donald Trump, told GQ "I'm definitely voting this time," when asked whether he plans to speak more about the upcoming election.

"And we know who Im voting on," said West, who appears on the cover of the magazine's May issue. "And Im not going to be told by the people around me and the people that have their agenda that my career is going to be over. Because guess what: I'm still here!"

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West noted that his album "Jesus Is King," which was released a year after his highly publicized Oval Office visit, "was No. 1!"

"I was told my career would end if I wasn't with her," West said, seemingly referencing former Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton's 2016 slogan. "What kind of campaign is that, anyway? That's like if Obama's campaign was 'I'm with black.' What's the point of being a celebrity if you cant have an opinion? Everybody make their own opinion! You know?"

That wasn't West's only mention of former President Barack Obama, whom he has been critical of in the past. (In April 2018, West tweeted: "Obama was in office for eight years and nothing in Chicago changed.")

"I buy real estate. It's better now than when Obama was in office," West told GQ. "They don't teach you in school about buying property. They teach you how to become somebody's property."

The rapper, whose wife Kim Kardashian West has become a force in the world of criminal justice reform and met with Trump on multiple occasions at the White House to advocate for sentencing reform, said black people "are controlled by emotions through the media."

West made that remark after the GQ reporter told him: "A lot of the reaction to you wearing the hat was 'How could the guy who gave us the gift of 'George Bush doesn't care about black people' now do this?'"

"The media puts musicians, artists, celebrities, actors in a position to be the face of the race, that really don't have any power and really are just working for white people," West responded. "When it's said like that, it's kind of obvious, right? We emotionally connect to someone of our color on TV and feel that this person is speaking for us. So let me say this: I am the founder of a $4 billion organization, one of the most Google-searched brands on the planet, and I will not be told who I'm gonna vote on because of my color."

West said he did not "intend for anything" except to speak his mind and express how he felt when he wore the hat and that he makes his own decisions.

"Both my parents were freedom fighters, and they used to drink from fountains they were told they couldn't drink from, and they used to sit in restaurants where they were told they couldn't eat from," West said. "They didn't fight for me to be told by white people which white person I can vote on."

Janelle Griffith is a breaking news reporter for NBC News.

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Kanye West implies he plans to vote for Donald Trump in 2020 - NBC News

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