Thursday on ABC’s “Jimmy Kimmel Live,” Kanye West discussed his decision to wear a “Make America Great Again” hat, which he explained had much to do with overcoming the fear of a backlash.
West told Kimmel he had been warned not to wear the hat but decided to do so, adding that he couldn’t be bullied into not doing.
“[J]ust as a musician, African-American, guy out in Hollywood — all these different things, you know, everyone around me tried to pick my candidate for me,” West said. “And then told me every time I said I liked Trump that I couldn’t say it out loud or my career would be over. I’d get kicked out of the black community because blacks — we’re supposed to have a monolithic thought, we can only like, we can only be Democrats and all. So, even when I said it right before I went to the hospital and I expressed myself, and when I came out I had lost my confidence.”
“So, I didn’t have the confidence to take on the world and the possible backlash, and it took me a year and a half have the confidence to stand up and put on the hat no matter what the consequences were,” he continued. “And what it represented to me is not about policies because I’m not a politician like that. But it represented overcoming fear and doing what you felt, no matter what anyone said, in saying, you can’t bully me. Liberals can’t bully me. News can’t bully me. The hip-hop community — they can’t bully me. Because at that point, if I’m afraid to be me, I’m no longer Ye. That’s what makes Ye. And I actually quite enjoy when people are mad at me about certain things.”
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