Kanye West is incapable of doing a boring interview, and his sit-down with Philadelphia's Hot 107.9 was no exception. The Chicago rapper covered some familiar topics, but had no lack of memorable quotes in the process, touching on the controversy over his confederate flag donning merch, his masks, and breaking the rules of hip hop.
Read some excerpts from the interview below.
On channeling child-like creativity:
The more creativity I get out, the younger I feel. Mentally I'm at a place where I'm like 3 years old now. When you're 3 years old you have less inhibitions about what you draw, and you don't know that Picasso is way better than you. You just know that this is what you want to create, and that's the way I think about it.
On backlash:
People are so afraid of the idea of backlash. For me I have this responsibility now to live inside the backlash, to show you you can do what you want in this world. You are limitless. Perceptions and opinions do not matter. They're not stronger than what you want to do for yourself.
On his masks:
When I put that on, I just feel like I can do anything, and that's the freedom that I want creatively... Our exterior that people see us in is kind of like a new mask, and it's not really who you are. Sometimes you have ideas, and people are too afraid to say it out loud, because you don't want people to look at you crazy, you don't want to get uninvited somewhere.
On being a "creative genius":
People sometimes get mad at me for saying I'm a creative genius. I'm not a musician--I don't even know how to play the piano--or a rapper in that way. I would write creative genius when i go through the airport at customs. But there's two reasons-- it takes too long to write, and sometimes I spell the word 'genius' wrong
On Tyler, The Creator's film skills:
He went to film school. When I work on videos, I was just practicing. That's part of the reason that I'm shooting three videos for stuff, because I make mistakes. Now if I went to school and knew what I was doing, I would've just shot one video. When he has an idea, what's in his head just comes out, he can say it really clearly and concisely. He knows what he wants to do, and that's why the universe responds to him like that. He just threw a carnival in LA and 10,000 people came. I was explaining that to my girl, and she was like 'how is that possible if he's not on the radio'?
On the controversy over his use of the confederate flag:
What black people don't know is racism is it's something that white people don't even have anything to do with anymore, because we hate niggas. We hate each other more than white people hate us. It's like a real estate of racism, it works on itself.
It's not that conversation of racism and symbols, but more of being free as an artist. As an artist I can use whatever I want to use to create with. I like symmetry, from a design perspective, the confederate flag is colder than the current american flag.
On breaking the rules:
I've always been the one who takes Mos Def and brings him to the studio with Jay Z, or takes my girl, who's on a reality show, and takes her right to the middle of fashion week, or I'm wearing a kilt in Chicago. Hip Hop broke the rules, and then it made its own rules and slowed down. I'm forever hip hop, I'm like the most hip hop human being of all time! [laughs]