Kanye West responds to Issa Rae’s Saturday Night Live joke: ‘SNL uses black people to hold other black people back’

Kanye West has said his “heart goes out to” Issa Rae after she made a joke at his expense on Saturday Night Live.

In a sketch, Insecure star Rae played an NAACP lawyer being interviewed by talk show host Kenan Thompson on “Your Voice Chicago”. When asked about the forthcoming presidential election, Rae’s character said she would be “voting for everybody black”, in reference to the 2017 Emmy Awards when Rae went viral for saying she was “rooting for everybody black”.

However, when Thompson suggested the presidential race was “between Donald Trump, Joe Biden and Kanye West”, Rae’s character simply said: “Kanye? F him!”

The following morning, West hit back at Rae and the show on Twitter, writing: “I’ve always said SNL uses black people to hold other black people back. My heart goes out to Issa Rae. I’m praying for her and her family.

“I know that the twenty years of service that I’ve paid in the entertainment field has furthered our ability to be more successful.”

Alongside West’s tweet was a screenshot of the Google results for the search term “Issa Rae”.

West recently released his first presidential campaign ad, just 22 days before the election.

“America. What is America’s destiny? What is best for our nation? Our people? What is just? True justice?" West ponders in the video.

“We have to think about all these things together as a people. To contemplate our future, to live up to our dream, we must have vision.”

He continues: “We as a people will revive our nation’s commitment to faith, to what our constitution calls the free exercise of religion, including, of course, prayer. Through prayer, faith can be restored.”