Kanye West's surprise appearance at Oxford University acclaimed as 'totally surreal and brilliant'

US rapper Kanye West stunned Oxford students by telling them that President Barack Obama calls his home phone.

The Oxford Guild only announced the event on Facebook on Sunday night (1 March), and only 350 were let in for the 3pm talk on Monday, after over 5,000 applied.

West walked on to the stage of the Museum of Natural History and was given a standing ovation. Ruth Mclean, editor of student newspaper Versa, said: ""It was surprising how he barely talked about music at all - the talk mostly flipped between art, philosophy and politics and I think he sees no separation between those worlds.

"Some of the stuff he said about now only the rich having access to beauty in the form of luxury suggested a pretty explosive political agenda which suggests to me some projects beyond music to come in the future. I'm interested to see where he takes these ideas."

We have the ability to approach our race like ants, or we have the ability to approach our race like crabs.

- Kanye West

The rapper compared himself to Picasso and talked of his close personal relationships with Elon Musk and also Obama, who frequently calls him on home phone. West didn't reveal the content of what they speak about but cryptically said: "With that I have a responsibility to serve."

Aled Jones, a 22-year-old law student at Oxford University, said the talk was "totally surreal and brilliant".

"It was basically a 45 minute long stream of consciousness speech about aestheticism, society and inequality. He couldn't be stopped. Not even when someone's phone went off and OneRepublic started playing," he said.

Others at the speech were not so impressed with West's ramblings, calling him "odd".

There was no mention of wife Kim Kardashian, although West did say of his daughter North: "People ask me how my daughter is doing. She's only doing good if your daughter's doing good. We're all one family."