US President Barack Obama has endorsed rapper Kayne West's potential plan to run for the country's top political job in 2020. Speaking at a fundraiser in San Francisco last night (10 October) Obama compared his own background and circumstance to the background of the musical superstar.

The president light-heartedly acknowledged West's desire to step into the political arena a pronouncement he made during the MTV Video Music Awards in August. "You may have heard about this, Kanye is thinking about running… for Speaker of the House," Obama joked. "It couldn't get any stranger. But, in case Kanye is serious about this whole Potus thing, or as he calls it Peezy." (West's nickname is Yeezy.) "I do have advice for him, there's some stuff I've picked up along the way," Obama said.

In what seemed like a reference to West's reality star wife Kim Kardashian and his own situation with Congress, he said: "First of all you've got to spend a lot of time dealing with some strange characters who behave like they're on a reality TV show, so you've got to be cool with that."

Moving on to what politicians can and can't say, and referring to West's controversial song My Dark Twisted Fantasy, Obama said: "Second, and this is a second important tip, saying that you have a beautiful, dark, twisted fantasy… that's what's known as 'off message' in politics, you can't say something like that. There are a lot of people who have lost their congressional seats saying things like that, we don't do that… that's number two."

Obama finished off his speech with a reference to West's background growing up in the notorious Chicago projects, his full name of Kanye Omari West and how, until his own election how many commentators thought it would be some time until an African-American would be voted into the US top political post.

He concluded: "And number three, do you really think that this country is going to elect a black guy from the south side of Chicago with a funny name to be president of the United States? That is crazy."

West is yet to formally announce his intention to run for US president in 2020. He made his intention clear to run for the US top political office while picking up the Video Vanguard Award at the MTV VMAs. The rapper has not divulged his political affiliation.

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