The Kremlin has responded to rumours that President Vladimir Putin had a meeting with US rapper Kanye West as spokesman Dmitriy Peskov dismissed the reports that the administration is in talks with the musician’s team about staging shows in Russia.
"I don’t think that the presidential administration is the executor vis-à-vis ... the organisation of [Kanye's] trip", Peskov said.
Asked whether the Russian head of state is familiar with the rapper’s activities and his music, the spokesman said that his knowledge was "not deep enough to be able to offer an assessment".
The statement comes a day after the musician’s PR representative Pierre Rougier dismissed Billboard’s story about West, who is now known as Ye after a name change. Rougier described the article as "fabricated" and a “work of fiction or wishful thinking from these Russian people”.
Billboard cited the rapper’s confidant and strategic adviser Ameer Sudan as saying that Ye wants to make Russia his "second home". "He will be spending a lot of time out there," Ameer Sudan said.
According to Sudan, Ye wants to expand his business by teaming up with Azerbaijani-Russian billionaire Aras Agalarov and his son Emin, who is a musician. In particular, Ye wants to hold his infamous Sunday Service in one of the venues owned by the Agalarov family. The business deal - as well as the concerts - could raise the musician’s wealth to more than $10 billion, the adviser added.
Sudan said that the rapper has long wanted to meet Russian President Vladimir Putin and wants invite the politician to one of his gospel shows but he might struggle. The Russian head of state is known to dislike hip-hop and rap music: in 2018, during a meeting on culture, Putin said that rap is based on three pillars - sex, drugs and protest - something the politician argued leads to degradation of the population.