Kanye West believes God wants him to run for president of the United States

He said: “I believe that my calling is to be the leader of the free world. Even though I’m the pastor for however big my audience is in hip-hop, in music or just as an influencer or celebrity, a dad and a husband in my house - there couldn’t be a better time to put a visionary in the captain’s chair. And that’s not to say we haven’t had visionaries before. I’m not here to down Trump, to down Biden - I’m just here to express why God has called me to take this position.”

Kanye also explained why he registered late as a presidential candidate, claiming that his battle with coronavirus earlier this year meant he was unable to put together his political campaign in the way he would have wanted.

He told the ‘Joe Rogan Experience’ podcast: “Why did I register so late to run for president? COVID. I had the virus and I was sitting in quarantine in my house and my cousin texts me about being prepared to run for president. And I just completely put it off to the side ‘cause I was like shivering and having the shakes and taking hot showers and eating soup. … [Coronavirus] threw everyone off. It threw everybody’s plans off. And then it was just this calling on my heart.”

Earlier this month, the ‘Bound 2’ hitmaker released his official campaign advertisement, in which he promised to "build a stronger country” by also “building stronger families”.

He said in the video: "To live up to our dream, we must have vision. We as a people will revive our nation’s commitment to faith, to what our constitution calls the free exercise of religion, including, of course, prayer. Through prayer, faith can be restored. We as a people are called to a greater purpose than ourselves. We are not only a beacon to the world, but we should be servants to each other. To encourage each other, to help each other, lift up each other.

“We have to act on faith, with assured knowledge that we are pursuing the right goals and doing the right things. We will build a stronger country by building stronger families. Families are the building blocks of society, of a nation. By turning to faith, we will be the kind of nation and the kind of people God intends us to be."