One interview in a year is a big deal for Kanye West, two is unheard of. Ye has surprised everyone and done his second interview in a month, this time with W Magazine. The #RARE interview is naturally riddled with pull quotes, as the rapper talks about Yeezus, Paris, Quentin Tarantino, and his intentions behind "I Am A God".
Read some choice excerpts from the sit down below.
On his decision to record in Paris…
“In Paris, you’re as far as possible from the land of pleasant smiles,” West says. “You can just trip on inspiration—there are so many people here who dedicate their lives to excellence.”
On the Paris Fashion Week incident that inspired "I Am A God"…
West was informed that he’d be invited to a widely anticipated runway show only on the condition that he agree not to attend any other shows. “So the next day I went to the studio with Daft Punk, and I wrote ‘I Am a God,’?” West says. “Cause it’s like, Yo! Nobody can tell me where I can and can’t go. Man, I’m the No. 1 living and breathing rock star. I am Axl Rose; I am Jim Morrison; I am Jimi Hendrix.” West is not smiling as he says this, and his voice is getting louder with each sentence. “You can’t say that you love music and then say that Kanye West can’t come to your show! To even think they could tell me where I could and couldn’t go is just ludicrous. It’s blasphemous—to rock ’n’ roll, and to music.”
On the title of “I Am A God”…
“I made that song because I am a god,” he says finally. He laughs for a second, then stops. “I don’t think there’s much more explanation. I’m not going to sit here and defend shit. That shit is rock ’n’ roll, man. That shit is rap music. I am a god. Now what?”
On being nervous around other celebrities...
“Anyone who meets me for the first time and is not slightly nervous is completely full of shit. Because when I meet people I respect, I’m nervous. When I go have lunch with Tarantino at the Chateau Marmont, I’m nervous. It’s fucking Tarantino!”
On his narcissism…
“On one end, I try to scale it back,” he says. “Because I don’t want to close any of the doors needed to create the best product possible. But my ego is my drug. My drug is, ‘I’m better than all you other motherfuckers. Kiss my ass!’?”
On being unconcerned with failure…
He’s planning his return to fashion and has set up an atelier in Milan, but right now, he says, his priority is “absorbing as much as possible” and finding the best people in every field to work with. The idea of failure seems to serve not as a deterrent but as a stimulus. Whenever he tries something new, West observes, “people say, ‘Why do you want to destroy your name?’ But I don’t care about my name as much as I care about my ideas. I could do something completely wrong, and people could hate it, but then someone else could see it and do it completely right. And it’s a push forward for civilization.”
On Watch The Throne...
“It was like Steve Jobs and Bill Gates talking at the same time. You know which one of us was Steve.”
On Yeezus...
“This music is made to spark the visionaries to stand up for themselves and help the world. Because the world is fucked.”