Rapper Kanye West did not predict coronavirus outbreak - A fact check

“Approximately April,” West replies.

The Facebook video is made up of several short sequences from an interview conducted with West in October, 2019, by presenter Zane Lowe . It is heavily-edited; Kanye’s words have been taken out of context.

In the original interview, when West says “this is going to be radical” (at video timecode 26:10), he is actually talking about asking staff not to have pre-marital sex whilst working on his album “Jesus is King”. He is not talking about an impending lockdown.

The comment “everybody goes home into lockdown in six months from now” in the Facebook video is stitched together using different phrases from the original interview. For example, the actual context of “everybody goes home” is “everybody goes home to their families and they want their sons and their daughters to be as successful as them." (timecode 42:31) West is not in vision during this sentence in the Facebook video, which would enable the edits.

In the doctored video, when the interviewer asks West for a reason for the lockdown, his reply is “China”. In the original clip he is actually discussing bringing manufacturing back to the U.S. from the Asian country (timecode 10.20).

When West references “April”, he is talking about his spiritual journey and becoming a born-again Christian (timecode 7.42).

False. The social media clip is heavily-edited from an interview posted in October 2019, in which the musician talks about his forthcoming album, being a born-again Christian and his future plans. He does not predict a lockdown during the nearly two-hour interview.