Kanye West not ‘typically American’ enough for the gig
WILL Kanye West be the next musician to drop a track to ridicule Trump? There’s a distinct possibility.
Tom Barrack, chairman of the Presidential Inaugural Committee, explained on Wednesday why the rapper, who visited President- elect Donald Trump in New York last December to discuss “life,” wouldn’t be in the lineup of A-list entertainment for 45’s inauguration.
“We haven’t asked him,” Barrack said of a West cameo in an interview with CNN. “He’s been great. He considers himself a friend of the president- elect, but it’s not the venue. The venue we have for entertainment is fi lled out. It’s perfect. It’s going to be typically and traditionally American.”
Other “typically and traditionally American” performers who graced the official stage at Thursday’s “Make America Great Again!” concert included country star Toby Keith, DJ Ravi Drums, the Frontmen of Country, and R& B crooner Chrisette Michele, who was announced as an addition to the lineup not long after Broadway star Jennifer Holliday backed out amid social media outrage from her fans.
Apparently West, who plans to run for president in either 2020 or 2024 (if his Twitter hashtags are to be believed) and who said he would have voted for Trump, doesn’t quite jibe with the Trump team’s musical vision.
In the past, the rapper, whose wife Kim Kardashian supported Hillary Clinton and whose mother-in-law Caitlyn Jenner attended Trump’s swearing-in ceremony, has clashed with a president or two.
During a Hurricane Katrina telethon fundraiser in 2005, West unceremoniously announced that “George Bush doesn’t care about black people.”
In 2009, after West’s infamous dust-up with Taylor Swift at MTV’s VMA, President Barack Obama called the Chicagoraised rapper a “jackass.”
“Kanye’s a great guy,” added Obama. “We just haven’t asked him to perform. And we move on with our agenda.” — Washington Bloomberg