Just weeks before the 2022 election, Kanye “Ye” West has said he’s not done with politics.
The rapper, who made a failed presidential bid in 2020, was asked in an interview with ABC News if he had “future political aspirations,” and replied, “Yes, absolutely.”
In the part of the interview that aired on Thursday Good morning AmericaYe declined to specify what political positions he might run for, but a day after Election Day in 2020, seemingly backing down with an Instagram post, he wrote “Kanye 2024.”
He also teased political ambitions earlier this year in the song “Keep It Burnin” with Future, in which he raps, “If you’re running for ’24, I bet your spouse will be with you / Who put that together? Me, that’s who.”
Ye, who was formerly married to Kim Kardashian and has publicized many arguments with her and ex-boyfriend Pete Davidson when Ye and Kardashian divorced, also apologized in the interview for “any stress I caused myself in my frustration. because God is calling me to be stronger.”
“This is the mother of my kids,” Ye said of Kardashian, adding that he hopes no one else is stressing her out. “I need that person who is the least stressed and sane and as calm as possible to raise these kids.”
Discussion of his marriage to Kardashian led to talks about his fashion partnerships with Adidas and Gap, which Ye has publicly feuded with, with Ye attempting to dissolve the Gap partnership.
“What happened at Gap, what happened at Adidas and what happened at my house,” Ye said of his “voice” as a co-parent in part of his response. “It was all sort of a disregard for the voice of something I helped create. I co-created the children. I helped design the product at Adidas. I helped design the product at Gap and there is a parallel and the parallel touches on discrimination.”
Ye reportedly tried to end his partnership with Gap last week and also expressed problems with Adidas, with whom he has a footwear deal.
In conversation with BloombergYe said he’s done with corporate partners and plans to go solo in his fashion endeavors.
“It’s time I do it alone,” Ye said Bloomberg. “That’s good. I made money for the companies. The companies made me money. We came up with ideas that will change apparel forever. Like the round jacket, the foam runner, the slides that changed the footwear industry. Now is it’s time for Ye to build the new industry. No more companies standing between me and the audience.”
On Sunday, Ye posted a document on Instagram titled “Summary of Restrictions on Standalone Yeezy Activities Under Licensing and Endorsement Agreement with Adidas and Strategic Agreement with Gap” and then deleted it. The document appeared to ban Yeezy and Ye from potentially profitable footwear, apparel and accessories activities, including those that “have designs that copy or resemble designs used on Yeezy by adidas or Yeezy Gap products.”
During the ABC News interview, Ye was asked, “How are you getting on in the fashion industry now when they say you can’t even show Yeezy products but anything like that?”
Ye replied: “Oh, we have some new lawyers. We really had to step up and show them, really show them who the new boss in town is.”
As for the price of his clothes, Davis said after the interview that Ye told her, “If you left it to meezy, it would be freezing, but it’s not that easy.” Instead, she said he sets a price of $20 .
More from Yes’s interview with ABC NewsLivePrime Host Linsey Davis airs on the Davis et al streaming show of the same name night line tonight and in the half-hour special A Conversation with Ye: Linsey Davis Reportingwhich airs tonight at 8:30 p.m. ET on ABC News Live and later streams on Hulu.
