Though Kanye West is in the midst of his presidential campaign, he found some time to sit down with Joe Rogan for a 3-hour conversation.
Together, the pair discussed everything from why Kanye decided to run for president, why he shared his record contracts on Twitter, what makes him a visionary, the impetus behind his Sunday Service series, and more.
Rogan agreed to speak with the rapper after Kanye publicly requested an interview on Twitter earlier this month, and even shared screenshots of the two FaceTiming. After giving the interview a listen, here are our five initial takeaways and first impressions.
Over the last year or so, Kanye has found God, a religious reawakening that has reverberated in all areas of his life—from music to his marriage, and even his presidential bid. So it’s not particularly shocking that he feels like God has chosen him for this moment.
“I believe that my calling is to be the leader of the free world,” Kanye said around the 4:05 mark. He then described how he feels like he wears multiple hats, with God “calling me to take this position.”
“Even though I’m the pastor for however big my audience is in hip-hop, in music or just as an influencer or celebrity, a dad and a husband in my house—there couldn’t be a better time to put a visionary in the captain’s chair. And that’s not to say we haven’t had visionaries before. I’m not here to down Trump, to down Biden—I’m just here to express why God has called me to take this position.”
In September, Kanye took to Twitter where he sent off a flurry of tweets about the state of the music business and the importance of artist ownership. He also tweeted out 114 pages of his own record contracts, revealing everything from a 2005 renegotiation with Roc-a-Fella to details of Watch the Throne and Cruel Summer to the structure of G.O.O.D. Music.
In his interview with Rogan, Kanye said that record contracts are stifling for the music industry and have also caused him to lose money.
“I’m willing to [reveal my contracts] because it’s the right thing to do,” Kanye explained around the 12:40 mark. “Music, at this point, loses me money. It doesn’t make me money. My $5 billion net worth and $300 million of cash that I see a year—music is like negative $4 million for me.”
He also briefly said that he blames his mother's death on the entertainment industry: “Always fighting to represent who you are against media, an entertainment industry that’s trying to tear down anybody that’s not going with the flow.”
Kanye also touched on his infamous interview with TMZ from 2018, where he said slavery is a “choice.”
“They told me I was bipolar,” he said around 56:45. “I remember going on TMZ and saying, ‘Slavery is a choice,’ and they medicated me for saying that. For having that opinion and saying it out loud. As I put those contracts up, I’m saying, ‘This is a choice.’”
He described how around the time he made those comments on TMZ, he was also medicated by doctors. That year also saw the release of his album Ye, where he seemingly confirmed a bipolar disorder diagnosis on the song “Yikes”: “That's my third person/That's my bipolar shit, n***a what?/That's my superpower, n***a ain't no disability/I'm a superhero! I'm a superhero!”
At the time of the release, it was unclear if that was an admission of his diagnosis or if he was responding to widespread rumors about his mental health. On the night of the album’s listening session in Jackson Hole, Wyoming, the rapper revealed that he was diagnosed with “a mental condition” when he was 39.
Kanye got a late start on his presidential campaign, which he told Rogan was because he contracted coronavirus. The rapper didn’t announce his bid until early July, later sharing that he’s running as the BDY (Birthday) Party candidate.
“Why did I register so late to run for president? COVID,” he said around the 1:47:25 mark. “I had the virus and I was sitting in quarantine in my house and my cousin texts me about being prepared to run for president. And I just completely put it off to the side ‘cause I was like shivering and having the shakes and taking hot showers and eating soup. … [Coronavirus] threw everyone off. It threw everybody’s plans off. And then it was just this calling on my heart.”
He has since qualified to appear on ballots in 12 states, though that doesn’t include his home state of Illinois. He's also had a number of slip-ups throughout his campaign with the latest being that he celebrated Kentucky election results that ended up being invalid. Additionally, news surfaced that he reportedly spent $3 million on his campaign in September when he only raised $2,782.
Kanye's unique talents with new ventures, particularly his latest collaboration with The Gap, leads him to believe he's among the most elite of product creators.
“I was thinking about buying my masters and I realized that that was too small of a thought,” he said around 1:51:20. “I’m going to buy Universal. They’re only a $33 billion organization. I’m one of the greatest product producers that ever existed—and I’m a child. I’m 43 years old. I was $53 million in debt four years ago. And now it’s proven that I’m the new Michael Jordan of products.”
He then described how he went to Adidas and helped them make billions, and more recently, how his partnership with The Gap helped their stock prices jump without releasing product.
“Michael Jordan had to break down walls and Michael Jackson had to break down walls for us to break down the next walls,” he said. He described how those walls are the board room, which echoed recent public comments he's made about wanting a board seat at Adidas and The Gap.
