Kanye West just gave the New York Times a lesson in art, culture and music.
Yes, that Kanye West. The same Kanye West who’s having a baby with Kim Kardashian, wears leather skirts and got called a “jackass” by the president.
West rarely does interviews but the Times’s Jon Caramanica managed to get him to open up, and it’s eye-popping stuff.
Think Will Smith’s embarrassing “student of the pattern” interview in New York Magazine and the Times’ classy take-down of January Jones.
West talks about the virtues of minimalism and how is constantly standing up for what is right (even when he interrupted Taylor Swift at the MTV Video Music Awards).
Here are some highlights:
Kanye fights for justice
“You know, if Michael Jordan can scream at the refs, me as Kanye West, as the Michael Jordan of music, can go and say, ‘This is wrong.'”
Kanye will change the world
“I am so credible and so influential and so relevant that I will change things. So when the next little girl that wants to be, you know, a musician .. and it’s time for us to roll out and say, ‘Did this person have the biggest thing of the year’ – that thing is more fair because I was there.”
Kanye is awesome
“It’s only led me to complete awesomeness at all times. It’s only led me to awesome truth and awesomeness. Beauty, truth, awesomeness. That’s all it is.”
Kanye doesn’t apologise
“If anyone’s reading this waiting for some type of full-on, flat apology for anything, they should just stop reading right now.”
Kanye is a child
“I’m forever the 35-year-old 5-year-old. I’m forever the 5-year-old of something.”
Fashion made Kanye insult President Bush
“I was wearing like, a Juicy Couture men’s polo shirt. We weren’t there, like, ready for war.”
Kanye’s baby isn’t America’s baby
“Yeah. Well, I just don’t want to talk to America about my family. Like, this is my baby. This isn’t America’s baby.”
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Kanye is trapped in another person’s body
“I’m a minimalist in a rapper’s body.”
Kanye is a philosopher
“Yeah, kill self. That’s all I have to say. Kill self.”
Kanye has much to teach the world
“I want to tell people, ‘I can create more for this world, and I’ve hit the glass ceiling.’ If I don’t scream, if I don’t say something, then no one’s going to say anything, you know So I come to them and say, ‘Dude, talk to me! Respect me!'”
Kanye is culture
“I will be the leader of a company that ends up being worth billions of dollars, because I got the answers. I understand culture. I am the nucleus.”
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