KANYE WEST - KANYE FIRES OFF AGAIN

KANYE WEST is firing off at America's white leaders again a week after he shocked TV viewers on a Hurricane Katrina telethon by claiming President GEORGE W BUSH was a racist.

The rapper ignored the telethon script and attacked Bush for not acting quicker to save African-Americans stranded by the storms in Mississippi and Louisiana.

And he isn't finished yet - appearing on ELLEN DeGENERES' US television chat show this morning (09SEP05), West insisted Bush and other politicians knew America's Gulf Coast couldn't withstand a hurricane a year before Katrina hit.

He said, "Back in the days when it was time to clean the kitchen I would try to sweep the dust under the kitchen sink instead of really taking care of it, and if you spilled something on that floor all that dust came right up in front of your face. That's basically what the flood did.

"They have been trying to sweep us (African-Americans) under the kitchen sink and it was so in people's faces and so on TV... that they couldn't even hide it any more.

"Down there, people are living below the poverty level to start off with, before this happened.

"A year ago I was on tour with USHER and we had a hurricane hit Florida and everybody was saying, 'If this hurricane went to Louisiana, if it went to Mississippi, they wouldn't be able to handle it.' (That was) a year ago - and there was nothing done about it."