The media firestorm that Kanye West created in the lead up to his latest album, Ye, had fans searching for answers. His unabashed support of Donald Trump and his mind-boggling slavery comments on TMZ had half his fans deciding he was cancelled and the other half anxiously awaiting to see if his new music would provide any context.
While some fans may not have found the answers they were looking for in Ye, Kanye still feels confident that he's accomplished his goals. In a lengthy profile with The New York Times, Kanye explains why he supports Trump, why he feels he was taken out of context on TMZ, and his immunity to being cancelled.
On his slavery comments, he felt like the world didn't understand the point that he was trying to make. "I said the idea of sitting in something for 400 years sounds — sounds — like a choice to me, I never said it’s a choice. I never said slavery itself — like being shackled in chains — was a choice," he says. "That’s why I went from slave to 400 years to mental prison to this and that. If you look at the clip you see the way my mind works."
For Donald Trump, Kanye's support of him appears to be more about two friends supporting each other than Kanye endorsing his politics. As he sees it, Kanye has the ability to speak up for himself, and other celebrities who he claims are in the closet about their support for Trump.
Kanye doesn't back down from his comments, choosing instead to take the controversy head on. "Half that audience that was there last night, half the people that are listening to the album are supposed to not listen to the album right now," he said. "I’m canceled. I’m canceled because I didn’t cancel Trump."
The interview is also filled with more personal views into Kanye's thought process, and an anecdote about how he saw Deadpool 2 twice in the week leading up to Ye, even though none of the lyrics had been written yet. Regardless of what you think of Kanye, he believes he's doing something no one else is willing to risk.
"We need to be able to be in situations where you can be irresponsible," Kanye says. "That’s one of the great privileges of an artist. An artist should be irresponsible in a way — a 3-year-old."