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Kanye new yorker cover
Kanye new yorker cover

A Cartoon Kanye West Is Your Next New Yorker Cover Star

Lenny Kravitz, Grace Jones, Lauryn Hill, Lion Babe, Thundercat, SZA & More Rock The Afropunk Festival 2015 in Brooklyn, NY.

Well, here we are. Kanye West will be the cover star of next week's issue of The New Yorker, appearing in cartoon form as a presidential candidate, a clear nod to the finale of his lengthy VMA speech, in which he declared he will be running for president in 2020. The cover is a cartoon mash-up of Yeezy and this iconic photograph of President Harry Truman, who in 1948 defeated Thomas E. Dewy, defying national expectations and headlines.

The cover was illustrated by artist Barry Blitt and has been dubbed "2020 Vision." Blitt remarked that West's 2020 plans should serve as a national reminder that it's never too early to look ahead to future elections. "And when one considers Mr. West," Blitt said, "it doesn’t take a whole lot of imagination to be reminded of another scrappy kid who won the Presidency, back in 1948, against all odds. The press wrote him off, too. That’s right—Harry Truman.”

Might Mr. West expect another news cycle of pundits' buzzing in the wake of The New Yorker cover? What's the better look, covering this literary bastion as a light-hearted cartoon, or seeing a high-res jpeg of own blank stare on the cover of TIME? Is the cartoon all in good fun, or yet another instance of the high-brow media talking down to a black artist who refuses to bite his tongue? Will the White House explode if "All Day" blasts at the Yeezy inauguration ball? Who will survive in America? Who's got those new Yeezy Boosts?