A Clubhouse room fooled an audience of thousands with an old Kanye West interview
- Clubhouse is a buzzy, invite-only audio app where users join rooms and listen to speakers.
- On Wednesday, a room that appeared to feature Kanye West drew thousands of listeners.
- But the West "interview" was actually a recording of Zane Lowe's 2019 podcast with him.
A rare Kanye West interview broadcast on the buzzy new audio app Clubhouse drew thousands of listeners on Wednesday morning. There was only one problem - while it sounded like West was being interviewed live, the room was actually just playing a recording of his 2019 podcast with Apple Music's Zane Lowe.
Clubhouse is an emerging Silicon Valley favorite, with an invite-only userbase and appearances from tech titans like Elon Musk and Mark Zuckerberg. Funded by investors Marc Andreessen and Ben Horowitz, Clubhouse has also attracted its fair share of controversy, as the platform lacks a clear content moderation strategy and has already hosted medical misinformation and allowed users to create homophobic and sexist room topics. Andreessen also blocks journalists regularly to prevent them from listening to him.
The app has also attracted a large userbase of Black creatives, and some of its most popular speakers are entertainers like comedian Tiffany Haddish and rapper 21 Savage. West seemed to be a likely guest on the app when a room popped up on Wednesday called "Kanye West Interview."
At the time Insider joined the room, more than 4,600 people were listening. There was nothing about the room's branding that would suggest the audio was actually from Lowe's 2019 interview. On Twitter, Insider found dozens of tweets from Clubhouse users who believed West was speaking live from one of the room's hosts' accounts.
But other listeners quickly recognized Lowe's voice and realized it was an old interview. Insider reached out to the hosts of the room on Instagram while the interview was being broadcast and exchanged direct messages with one of the hosts, who confirmed it was the 2019 podcast playing.
Dante Terrel Almonacy, a model and creative based in New York City, told Insider he and the room's other hosts intended to play the recording of the interview, then conduct a Q&A afterward about West's "misunderstood" intentions. He said he and his co-hosts, who include producer Mosin Pictures and Brooklyn rapper Clintn Lord, had been gaining traction on Clubhouse already, but that the West room was their biggest audience yet.
Clubhouse didn't immediately respond to Insider's request for comment.