Donald Trump may have declared that he loved Kanye West and that the rapper “loves Trump”, but it seems West may prefer one of his Republican rivals – Ben Carson.



In a Vanity Fair article published on Thursday, West glowingly endorsed Carson, who is gaining on the Republican frontrunner in the polls, saying: “As soon as I heard [Ben] Carson speak, I tried for three weeks to get on the phone with him. I was like this is the most brilliant guy.”

Armstrong Williams, Carson’s business manager, confirmed that West had spent three weeks trying to get the Johns Hopkins neurosurgeon-turned-presidential candidate on the phone – and he had been successful, Williams told the Guardian.

“They spoke for about 45 minutes,” Williams said. “It was a fun conversation. Kanye was singing and rapping on the phone.”

He said the two talked about politics, about life, and about music, but added that “Kanye mostly talked about himself. He rapped – he was introducing Dr Carson to his lyrics and what he raps about.” He quickly added that “it was clean rap; his lyrics were all clean.”

The conversation was some time ago, Williams said, while Carson was still at Johns Hopkins. In response to West’s comments in Vanity Fair on Thursday, Williams said Carson was “very grateful that Kanye believes in him”.

Ben Carson speaks to the crowd during a campaign rally held at Spring Arbor University in Spring Arbor, Michigan, on Wednesday. Photograph: Mlive.com/Landov / Barcroft Med

“He thinks [Kanye] is a genius,” Williams continued. “He’s grateful, and he’s looking forward to Kanye getting involved in the campaign.”



He said that Carson planned to get Kanye on the phone “in the next few days” to talk about how the Yeezus star might get involved with the Carson campaign.

Asked if West was under consideration as a running-mate, however, Williams said: “No, because Kanye’s running in 2020. Kanye’s made it very clear he wants to run himself.”

This certainly appears to be the case. Asked by Vanity Fair in the article if he was still intending to run for president in 2020, as he suggested at the recent VMAs, West said: “Oh, definitely.”

But he added: “I hate politics. I’m not a politician at all. I care about the truth and I just care about human beings. I just want everyone to win.

“When I run for president, I’d prefer not to run against someone,” he said. “I would be like ‘I want to work with you’.”

Representatives for West did not immediately respond to requests for comment.