Late last year Kanye West caught heaps of flack — even more than usual — for showing up at Trump Tower to meet with then-president-elect Donald Trump. The two “great friends” chatted about “life,” posed for a photo op, then went their separate ways into a maelstrom of criticism. That same day, Kanye tweeted a defense of his meeting, explaining that he did it “to discuss multicultural issues” and felt at the time that it’s “important to have a direct line of communication with our future President if we truly want change.” He then went on to delete all Trump-related tweets and has been mum on the subject ever since. Kanye’s silence hasn’t gotten him off the hook with those closest to him, however. His actual friend John Legend publicly shamed Kanye for schmoozing up to Trump, calling the move a “publicity stunt” that left him disappointed in Kanye. Now, months later, Kanye has finally found someone who shares his perspective: Killer Mike.
In an interview with U.K.’s Channel 4, the rapper and noted Bernie bro says he wasn’t bothered by the Kanye-Trump meeting. “Why wouldn’t you [go]?” he countered. “Black people shouldn’t have permanent friends or enemies, they should have permanent interest.” To his mind, it takes someone willing to dance with the devil, as Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. did when he repeatedly met with the bigoted Alabama governor George Wallace, to inspire positive change. Though that doesn’t mean Killer Mike was impressed by that someone being Kanye: “A musician meeting a presidential candidate isn’t important to me like Jim Brown,” he says of Trump’s other meeting the day he talked to Kanye. “Jim Brown, for the last 50 years, has fought against the oppression of all people. Him sitting with President Trump was a significant thing for me, because I know on the other side of the table he was telling the truth.” Watch a clip of Mike’s hot take below.
