Kanye West, right, with Steven Smith, lead designer at Yeezy during a discussion on fashion and design at the Fast Company Innovation Festival in New York on Thursday, Nov. 7, 2019. (AP Photo/David Martin)
Kanye West, right, with Steven Smith, lead designer at Yeezy during a discussion on fashion and design at the Fast Company Innovation Festival in New York on Thursday, Nov. 7, 2019. (AP Photo/David Martin)
Kanye West is riding high on the instant success of his recently released “Jesus Is King” album, and to make it sweeter, he’s thinking about changing his name to, get this: Christian Genius Billionaire, according to several reports.
While making a surprise appearance at the 2019 Fast Company Innovation Festival, West revealed to the audience that he was mulling over the idea of legally changing his name to “Christian Genius Billionaire Kanye West” for a little while.
“Martin Luther King didn’t get killed because he had a dream; he had something else he was gong to talk about. He talked about Black empowerment, economic empowerment,” West explained at the Fast Company Innovation Festival in New York, according to The Hollywood Reporter. “When I did Forbes, I showed them a $890 million receipt and they still didn’t say ‘billionaire.'”
“They don’t want us to know that we can buy land; they don’t want us to have the 100 percent ownership [that] I have at Yeezy,” he continued, referring to his fashion line, which Forbes magazine recently estimated would top $1.5 billion in 2019.
“When people say it’s crass to call yourself a billionaire, I say I might legally change my name to Christian Genius Billionaire Kanye West for a year until y’all understand exactly what it is… It will be on the license plate.”
“That’s going to be so hard to type,” Wilson teased.
“It will be on the license plate,” West responded playing along.
The Chicago native also hasn’t given up the notion of running for president. He first mentioned the idea in 2016 at the MTV Video Music Awards. But he put the notion back on the table during the recent appearance.
“When I run for president in 2024 —” he began, right before laughter from the audience interrupted him. “What y’all laughing at? We would create so many jobs!”
“I’m not going to run, I’m going to walk,” West went on, nonplussed. “When you see headlines saying Kanye’s crazy — one in three African Americans are in jail and all the celebrities are in jail also because they can’t say nothing, they got no opinion, they’re so scared!”
