Kanye West at the White House: how the world reacted

The unlikely friendship between Donald Trump and Kanye West took another bizarre turn on Thursday, when the hip-hop star launched into an expletive-laden monologue in support of the US president during a visit to the Oval Office.

The pair’s relationship has triggered considerable criticism from activists and fellow artists including Moby and John Legend, who have accused the musician of “debasing” himself and being “blind to the truth” after West called Trump his “brother”.

But it seems the rapper has taken little of the criticism on board, judging by his ten-minute rant in front of the president and stunned reporters during the White House meeting - purportedly to talk about prison reform.

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He told Trump: “My dad and my mom separated, so there was not a lot of male energy in my home, and also I’m married to a family that, you know, not a lot of male energy, going on – it’s beautiful though.

“I love Hillary [Clinton], I love everyone, right, but the campaign ‘I’m With Her’ just didn’t make me feel, as a guy that didn’t get to see my dad all the time, like a guy that could play catch with his son.

“It was something about when I put this hat on, it made me feel like Superman. You made a Superman. That’s my favorite superhero. You made a Superman cape for me.”

In apparent reference to his similar pro-Trump rant on Saturday Night Live last month, which provoked boos from the audience, West added: “What I need Saturday Night Live to improve on, and what I need the liberals to improve on is, if he don’t look good, we don’t look good. This is our president. He has to be the freshest, the flyest, the flyest planes, the best factories.”

Footage of West’s latest rant quickly went viral, with many news outlets expressing disbelief. Vanity Fair called it an “erratic, whiplash-inducing Valkyrie ride”, while The Guardian said that had West had “carved out his own niche in history by publicly uttering the word ‘motherf***er’ in the office of Franklin Delano Roosevelt, Ronald Reagan and Barack Obama”.

Rolling Stone’s website described it as “the craziest Oval Office performance of all time”. Twitter users also wasted no time in mocking the rapper.

But not everyone saw the funny side. CNN’s Don Lemon equated West’s performance to that of a “minstrel show”, and said the star was “embarrassing himself and embarrassing Americans - but mostly African-Americans”.

Rapper TI, with whom Kanye has collaborated in the past, posted a message on Instagram calling the Oval Office meeting the “most repulsive, disgraceful, embarrassing act of desperation & auctioning off of one’s soul to gain power I’ve ever seen”. In a message directed at Kanye, he added: “At one time it was a pleasure to work alongside you... now, I’m ashamed to have ever been associated with you. I’ve reached my limits. This is my stop, I’m officially done.”

However, others pointed the finger of blame at the president. As CNN’s Clay Cane noted, there have been allegations that “Trump is exploiting Kanye West, who has admitted to having mental health issues, by inviting the press to witness his gesticulating and f-bomb throwing in the Oval Office”.