Kanye West explains his calling to be the leader of the free world on Joe Rogan podcast – Daily Mail

Kanye West sat down for an extended conversation on the Joe Rogan Experience on Saturday.

During their nearly three-hour chat, the hip-hop legend and entrepreneur touched on an array of hot-button topics including politics, race, religion, the music and entertainment industries and his much-publicized mental health issues. 

With Americans already voting ahead of the November 3 elections by the millions, Rogan wasted little time and opened the show by asking West why he’s running for president, which prompted him to reiterate that he feels ‘a high power calling him to lead the free world.’ 

‘It was something God put on my heart back in 2015. A few days before the MTV Video Awards, it hit me in the shower,’ West recalled about his initial thought to run for president.

‘And when I first thought of it I started laughing to myself.  All this joy came over my body, through my soul. I just felt that energy; I felt that spirit.’

He went on to reveal how some friends, including people in the music industry and others, who ‘took it as a joke’ and gave him seemingly endless reasons why he couldn’t and shouldn’t run for president.

After a mention of Ronald Reagan’s path to the White House, Rogan went on to suggest a run for California governor as a way for West to gain experience en route to the presidency.  

‘I believe my calling is to be the leader of the free world. If it’s in God’s plan that part of my path is to be the governor, that’s fine. But my calling is to be the leader of the free world,’ he responded.

‘There couldn’t be a better time to put a visionary in the captain’s chair,’ he explained before adding, ‘I’m not here to down Trump or down Biden, I’m just here to express why God has called me to take this position. I manifest. I see things. I’m a great leader because I listen and I’m empathetic and I feel the entire Earth…  I do believe in world peace.’ 

While speaking uninterrupted for long stretches, West, at times, meandered off of topics and began elaborating about other subject matter.  

At certain points he suggested the likes of Bob Marley, Michael Jackson, Prince and Bruce and Brandon Lee had been murdered, among other claims. 

Elsewhere in the interview, West discussed religion, his work as a ‘pastor,’ his wildly successful clothing line, and the pitfalls of the music industry. 

‘At this point music loses me money. Of my $5 billion net worth, music is negative $4 million,’ he claimed.

‘I’m not at war with the music industry. I’m just saying we need to innovate. When I posted my contracts, I had ten contracts that kept putting me inside a labyrinth and things we don’t need.’

He added, ‘The contracts are made to rape the artists… There’s a way both parties can be happy. These deals can be flipped in a way that they’re just more fair.’

Rogan appeared to be more than sympathetic when it came to West’s well-chronicled issues with mental health, during which he suggested medications can ‘kill genius’.

‘It destroyed my confidence, made me a shell, glazed over my eyes, it made the mustang not buck anymore,’ West replied after being asked what his medications felt like.

‘They told me I was bipolar and I remember going on TMZ and saying slavery was a choice, and they medicated me for having that opinion and saying it out loud. But when I put those [music] contracts up I’m saying that was a choice.’    

Afterwards, Rogan, who’s also well known for his work as a comedian and UFC commentator, appeared to be pleased with their conversation when he teased it on his Instagram page.

‘Beyond my expectations, and I think people are going to have a much better understanding and appreciation of how this man thinks,’ Rogan wrote in the caption of a photo showing himself alongside West.

‘I really enjoyed talking to him, and we had a lot of fun.’