Kanye West expressed his support for Donald Trump during a packed concert in San Jose Thursday night. But he now denies expressing support for Trump’s strong anti-immigrant stance.
Update, 4:05 pm PT: Through a representative, Kanye West has now denied making the following statement: “I hope they build a wall, I hope they get rid of them all”. The statement was originally tweeted and reported across dozens of outlets following his pro-Trump speech. An executive at Kanye West’s label, Universal Music Group division Def Jam Recordings, told Digital Music News that the statement was fabricated. On Monday (Nov. 21st), the executive asked that we remove his name from our coverage.
Kanye West shocked an audience last night in San Jose by professing his support for Donald Trump, including support for the candidate’s stance on immigration. This is the first time Kanye has expressed an opinion on matters related to immigration, specifically Mexicans, in America.
The forceful backing of Trump was met with boos and jeers, but also a smattering of applause. “Before I told you that I didn’t vote. But that was just being PC. If I would have voted, I would have voted on Trump,” Kanye told his audience amidst boos and jeers.
“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, do not say that.'”
It turns out that West has been a longtime, open supporter of Trump. But perhaps that got drowned out during a noisy campaign. Either way, it was news to many Kanye fans.
During the speech, some fans reportedly walked out, while others expressed shock. During the roughly 40 minute diatribe, one fan threw his shoe onto the elevated stage.
“Oh shit, you threw something at me. Does someone else wanna throw something at me? But, you know what, I got the power to get that guy kicked out, or 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? No! That’s not supposed to happen, right? Case in point.”
Kanye famously proclaimed that “George Bush doesn’t like black people” back in 2004, though his stance on racism has now shifted.
Kanye urged his fans to reconsider racism entirely.
“Before I get out of here I want to talk about race and the idea of racism in America and the world. Specifically to black people, stop focusing on racism. This world is racist, OK? Let’s stop being distracted to focus on that as much. It’s a fucking fact. We are in a racist country.”
Kanye attempted to straddle his support for Trump with support for Black Lives Matter, not to mention gay and women’s rights. That could prove tricky, especially if Kanye plans a 2020 Presidential candidacy.
“That don’t mean that I don’t think that Black Lives Matter. It don’t mean I don’t think that I’m a believer in women’s rights. It don’t mean I don’t believe in gay marriage. That don’t mean that I don’t believe in these things because that was the guy I would have voted for.”
But perhaps the most surprising comments came during a freestyle rap (updated: a representative of Kanye West says the comments were never made). According to dozens of tweets and reports from the show, West expressed ardent support for the immediate deportation of illegal immigrants (mostly Mexicans). It also includes full support for construction of a wall along the Mexican border.
“I hope they build the wall, I hope they get rid of them all,” Kanye rapped.
Update, 4:05 pm PT: A representative of Kanye West has now denied that this was rapped in a freestyle. The words were fabricated (see update above).
That comment — fabricated or otherwise — was met with immediate rebuke, most notably from Latino-focused political advocacy group, Voto Latino.
Meanwhile, Trump himself has previously thanked Kanye West for his ongoing support. “I love Kanye,” Trump said, while noting he might change his mind if he faces the rapper in a re-election bid in 2020.
Top image by Pieter-Jannick Dijkstra, licensed under Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 Generic (CC by 2.0).
If there is a wall built, I hope Kanye is on the other side of it.
Can someone please tell me why the fuck ILLEGAL Immigrants should have the right to sneak into a Country ILLEGALLY then stay LEGALLY? DID I MISS SOMETHING!!!???? Can I go rob a gas station because I am starving and broke and get away with it? FOR ALL THE MEXICANS: MEXICANS ARE NOT ILLEGAL IMMIGRANTS. MEXICAN DOES NOT MEAN ILLEGAL IMMIGRANTS. ILLEGAL IMMIGRANTS ARE ILLEGAL. Stop Being stupid. I have only one really close friend. He is Mexican. He was born here. I am not racist. But if you do something that you shouldn’t, WHY THE FUCK SHOULDN’T YOU RECEIVE THE CONSEQUENCE OF YOUR ACTION????? What is the world coming to……
Robbing a gas station, and going to another country illegally get a better life.
It’s 2 different things.
If you really want to understand the motive of things you have to put yourself in their shoes.
If you were there would you risk your family , your kids getting killed by corruption and crime?
It would you to another country ILLEGALLY to protect your family?
Please tell me what would you do?
Businesses have bussed in Mexicans and used them for cheap labor. Why blame them and not the business owners who knowingly hire them illegally? These people want to work like anyone else. American businesses advertise jobs in Mexico, so, again, why not blame the business owners? The business owners are getting away with breaking the law. These so called illegals work. And people like you treat them like criminals.
Agreed 100%.
15 years ago, i was working as a software architect for one of the largest payroll processing companies in the United States. Someone from the business side of the company had to explain to me that the software had to allow the same social security number to be associated with any number of different identities/employers. It wasn’t difficult to find examples where the same social security number is shared by 5-10 people, all working for the same company. Its rampant and its exploitative. The employer profits by paying less than the labor truly costs.
People like me treat Mexican illegals like criminals too, because they are! Nobody wants you here.
1- Somehow I am not surprised you have only one true friend
2- It your one an only friend was born in the US, he is NOT Mexican, he is American
3- Europeans migrated ILLEGALLY into America
4- Americans were the first ones to cross the southern border illegally.
5- The Mexicans who cross illegally into the US belong to the lower classes. As such, while mestizo, they are predominantly of native American ascendance. They are retaking their land.
Look up the Treaty of Guadalupe Hildago
The same motherfuckers who think it’s ok to rape and pillage a country and destroy natives asshole!
I encourage any one that has purchased tickets for Kanye West’s concert in Sacramento tomorrow to please seek a refund.
Free speech and democracy not allowed?
You don’t really believe that childish paranoid narrative that Trump who hasn’t been in office a week is somehow a big bad boogie-man in spite of there being zero proof in any regard?
With Hillary you would be in danger.
Stop believing the nonsense that the DNC are the party for the minorities; they don’t do anything special for them and if they did that would be worse; that would make them parasites and seditious.
Allow Kayne to have his view; a lot of people enjoy that infantile style of juvenile junkfood music, hip-hop and like banalities. Let them.
If you’re coming to protect you’re family and you have nothing on your criminal record, why not apply for citizenship? Are people from Mexico really so much more virtuous then someone in Romania who has to wait years to emigrate legally?
Also, Mexico has a border wall/fence on their southern border.
It’s about survival. Mexico is hellish, with no jobs and extreme poverty. So you can’t blame people making a dash. But then, US companies not only have jobs, they want illegal immigrants to fill them. Simple supply and demand.
“Mexico is hellish,…”
And why is it hellish? Because it’s run by Mexicans, that’s why, so why would you want people who’ve turned their own country to s**t coming to the US?
If they were really serious about a better future for their children, they’d stay and fight to change their own country to make it a better place.
I’m not so sure it’s so simple. If there’s a corrupt government, raging drug wars, and heavy poverty, you try to get out — whether that’s Mexico, Venezuela, Congo, whatever. I’d agree with the above commenter, these people are desperate and employers in the U.S. will employ them. They don’t want a wall, they need the cheap labor.
Im iligel bilt the wall mother fuckers i dont give a fuck we built tunnels
Blacks supporting white supremacists. Cool.
No, an American supporting America.
Who is the racist here? Looks like you. That is a dangerous myth you are perpetuating about the ELECTED government. The truth is that the hosts and creators of this nation are not minorities–don’t bite the hand that feeds you. Now if you don’t like ‘whitey’ then you can boycott him. You can start by not using any of his: electricity, infrastructure, cars, trains, planes, advanced mathematics, audio, video, advanced medicine, computers, radios, phones, language, thought systems, democracy. Just about everything in your reality.
Whitey helps those from the Third World like yourself–be grateful he does; he doesn’t have to.
@ 9 : you give the term ” american idiot” a whole new meaning. That’s what happens when you skip school and get your education from Fox news, who thinks the world started 50 years ago in New York.
Go back to school or read a bit about history ( no, not from the Bible or cartoons, from real serious academic work ), most of what you cited is based on previous advancements by various civilisations, some of them very brown looking. Modern algorithms are based on work by … Al-Khwarizmi , a muslim mathematician ( hence the name ), from two centuries ago, who pretty mcuh created algebra ( from the arabic work Al-Jibr ) Brown and muslim, your worst nightmare .
And perhaps you should stop using arabic numbers and go back to roman numerals.
You’re pretty much the only people on earth ( along with the ISIS fools ) who actually BRAG on being ignorant , instead of being ashamed of it. Who needs science when you have bibles and guns !!
@ 9 : so perhaps YOU should stop using all the technology you cited since it’s based in part on advances from non-white, non-christian people. As for the part that is created by white people in more recent times, unfortunately for you again, a huge proportion of them tend to be jews, or leaning to the left.
In fact, 99.999% of all the people in history that ever contributed to any advances in science, philosophy or technology are 100% in the opposite spectrum of where Trump ( and its moronic, mentally retareded illiterate supporters) sit.
And if you don’t like it, why don’t you just go back to Ireland ? :-))
Anger is fear. Fear is not helpful. Try kindness and compassion; you will feel much better for it.
i cummed passion all ova ur mom- she loved it!
Alrighty then! Thanks everyone for a nice splash of extreme racism. Now back to the news.
When you play with fire…..
It seems to me that the results of this election haven’t actually changed anything, YET. But, it has revealed some very ugly realities that many of us had begun to deny or feel complacent about.
West rhythmed “wall” and “all”… A regular Robert Frost this guy..Hip hop and rap are lies…..
Mexicans are racist! Now there upset with what’s coming to them smh