FUSE TV - President Obama Prefers Jay-Z Over Kanye

The President has spoken and Kanye West is still a jackass. In fact, 'Ye, Obama prefers your buddy Jay-Z. Sorry.

For a recent profile of 'Ye and Hova's Watch the Throne tour in The Atlantic, writer David Samuels landed a few minutes with the Commander in Chief to discuss the two giants of hip hop—the firebrand Kanye and the cool, successful Jay-Z, as Samuels tells it. Here's an excerpt from Samuels' conversation with O.

“Kanye or Jay-Z?” 

The president smiles. “Jay-Z,” he says, as if the answer should be obvious. When it comes to the most meaningful pop-cultural divide of the moment, the question of whether you prefer Kanye West or Jay-Z—the top two hip-hop artists in the world, who recently joined forces for a national mega-tour called Watch the Throne—Barack Obama is clearly a Jay-Z guy. Jay-Z is about control ... 

“Although I like Kanye,” Obama continues, with an easy smile. “He’s a Chicago guy. Smart. He’s very talented.” He is displaying his larger awareness of the question, looking relaxed, cerebral but friendly, alive to the moment, waiting for me to get to the heart of the matter.

“Even though you called him a jackass?,” I ask.

“He is a jackass,” Obama says, in his likable and perfectly balanced modern-professorial voice. “But he’s talented.” The president gives a wink, poses for a few more pictures, and then glides away to meet with the rich Manhattan lawyers in the other room, leaving behind a verdict that he intended to be funny, and also entirely deliberate: even before an audience of one, the leader of the free world is still not letting Kanye West off the hook.

Read the whole article over at The Atlantic.