Kanye West says he wants to model US government on Black Panther’s Wakanda

Artist recently claimed he intends to run for president later this year

Kanye West has said that he would model the management of the White House on the fictional nation of Wakanda from Marvel’s Black Panther.

The US rapper recently claimed that he intended to run for president in the forthcoming 2020 election. He said he would run as a Republican if Donald Trump drops out or as an independent if he does not. West has yet to file the required federal paperwork and is too late to appear on certain state ballots.

In an interview with Forbes, West suggested he wished to emulate the model of organisation depicted in the hit sci-fi film.

“A lot of Africans do not like the movie [Black Panther] and representation of themselves in…Wakanda,” he said. "But I’m gonna use the framework of Wakanda right now because it’s the best explanation of what our design group is going to feel like in the White House.

“That is a positive idea: you got Kanye West, one of the most powerful humans—I’m not saying the most because you got a lot of alien level superpowers and it’s only collectively that we can set it free.”

Black Panther, released in 2018, starred Chadwick Boseman as the superpowered king of the futuristic African country Wakanda.

West seemed to suggest that the specific way he wanted to borrow from the film was in the technological infrastructure, such as the way in which its leader (King T’Challa) works closely with the nation’s top scientists.

“Let’s get back to Wakanda,” he continued. “like in the movie in Wakanda when the king went to visit that lead scientist to have the shoes wrap around her shoes. Just the amount of innovation that can happen, the amount of innovation in medicine – like big pharma – we are going to work, innovate, together.”

West’s interview was described by Forbes as “rambling”. The “Jesus Walks” artist also covered topics including his alleged contraction of Covid-19 and his retraction of support for President Trump.