Can’t fault that confidence, tho.
Today, 18 months later, Kanye West has sat down with Zane Lowe for the second and probably last time—Lowe recently announced his move from BBC to Apple, and will be moving State side (*tear*)—it’s a 43 minute epic, covering everything from Driz to his work with Adidas to his upcoming album.
The whole thing is nightmare fuel for any haters, but ‘Ye is surprisingly controlled, collected and measured in this one – at least compared to his 2013 stint. Kanye also was moved to tears at one point during the interview while discussing his friend and collaborator Louise Wilson, the fashion designer at London’s Central Saint Martin’s art school who passed away last year. “That’s never happened to me in an interview before,” Kanye admitted. This is a new Yeezus, people.
For those who don’t have the luxury of whiling away their lunch break with Zane and Kanye, some highlights are below.
On working with brands who don’t let Kanye’s creativity flourish: “They say, ‘No, you are a celebrity, you are not allowed to create, you are not allowed to think, you are not allowed to have an opinion, you’re just here to wear a leather jacket and shut up.’”
On the last time he saw Louise Wilson: “Last time I saw her we had dinner, she gave me some words of advice: ‘So many students don’t give it their all. The problem is, as soon as they do anything halfway good, when they’re two years old, three years old, their parents clap.’ And she just looked at me and she said, ‘Kanye. Don’t clap.’ I didn’t know we were gonna lose her.”
On not being too happy about his Adidas line’s price: “Exclusivity is the new n-word, because nothing should be exclusive. Everybody should have the opportunity to drink from the same fountain. The idea of exclusivity is the new coloured people fountain concept!”
On how he used to act in interviews: “I was using the wrong words. I was getting the drink thrown in my face
as opposed to leaving with the girl at the end of the night. I’d think
about the wild shit I’d say in interviews, and imagine if someone said
this to a girl at a bar. ‘Yo what up baby I’m a genius’. It would be
like, ‘Who’s this guy?’ I was looking at this girl, and I would stumble.
I was like The 40 Year-Old Virgin. I did not know how to communicate. I
had my point. My message was: ‘Your egg. My semen. We’re gonna change
the world.’”
On Drake: “I don’t have any advice for this young man, but what I say is: Run.
Fly. Go as fast as you can. Don’t stop. [Let’s do] anything that we can
do, to collectively deliver more awesomeness to the world, as a team.”
On his Adidas & APC collab haters: “People be dissing me on Hypebeast…no one idea has any idea what the meetings were like.”
On the new album: “The College Dropout came out of a fight to rap. This new album’s coming out of a fight to design.”
On the Grammys: “Every now and then an Arcade Fire will win, but even a broke clock is right twice a day. What do you do those other times? If you had an assistant that could only give you the right time twice a day, you’d fire that assistant. The Grammys are not the pinnacle. They’re an assistant. Us, the musicians—we’re the pinnacle…I hadn’t been in six years and the Grammys are definitely like an
ex-girlfriend, soon as you get in the car with them, you want to go
right back home.”
Watch the whole thing below.
Via Pitchfork.
