Hell 2 Da Naw Naw: Kanye’s “Campaign”

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I've been a fan of Kanye West's work since he burst upon the scene with Roc-A-Fella Records in the early 2000s. I've followed him throughout his career and one thing I do understand about him is that he has GREAT TIMING, especially when it comes to releasing his projects.

For years, Kanye has said that he would run for President and for many, it sounds like a good idea in theory, but for many of us in the real world that understands politics, he's just another celebrity "billionaire" that wants POWER to remake the world into "their" image, stroking their ego and hopefully praise from his "supporters" (sounds familiar?).

So let's talk about his most recent "announcement" that he's running for President. I got time today. According to XXL, West has confirmed he is running and has a "running mate" Michelle Tidball, a preacher from Wyoming. West claims he's not running as a Republican or Democrat, but he's running under the "Birthday Party" because according to him "when we win, it’s everybody’s birthday,".

For the record, West has already missed the ballot in a bunch of states including Texas and has yet to file his candidacy with the Federal Elections Commission. While he still has time to make the ballot in a few other states because of election delays in some states due to the pandemic, chances are slim that West will make the ballot. And even if he manages to land on the ballot in a few states, the fear is that he will pull away votes which in turn could work in the favor of one candidate over the other. But you have nothing to fear.

Why??? Because Kanye has an album to promote that's dropping soon tentatively titled "God's Country". Last week, West released the first single from that album called "Wash In Our Blood" featuring Travis Scott. He even produced a video for it:

A couple of things to consider here: West released the video a week ago to very little fanfare or announcement. On the day he broke the news on Twitter that he was running, his tweet got more reaction than his lead single.

At the time of his announcement, his video only had 7 million views, fast forward to today and only 1 million more views of his "lead single" have been counted. Considering that most Kanye West songs on Youtube have counts into the HUNDREDS OF MILLIONS, this tepid response to his latest single shows that the public is no longer interested in Kanye West's music.

So, how does one drum up attention to a project that will more than likely be dead in the water upon arrival? Use the "election" and the energy around that to draw attention to yourself. You already gassed up your fans by saying you would so pull the trigger now.

This has been Kanye's calling card for decades and it amazes me that no one has seen how he operates. But if there's one thing I hope you take away from this article is that maybe, just maybe, its time we stop giving celebrity billionaires POWER over us regular folks.

Because "no one man should have all that power".