Zane Lowe: Grab a seat, grab a seat. So, you remember this place? Graduation? I was also thinking about some of the other things we've done as well with the BBC, like Abbey Road sprung to mind with the strings.
Kanye West: Oh yeah. That was good. That suit was like, I would've worn something different if I could look back right now. I could still do a suit, I just wouldn't have done that exact lapel situation.
ZL: But talk about really putting yourself on the line with that. That was so early on for you to be stepping in a room with that many players and to give yourself that objective. What are your thoughts when you think back about Abbey Road, where...it's just nuts.
KW: I thought it was good. I thought it was what I was supposed to do at that time. If I see something, if I see an opportunity, I'm gonna go for it. We're all gonna die one day.
ZL: Yeah, that's true.
KW: So live like that. Live like you could die tomorrow. Go for it. Those steps have been the platforms that allowed me to make it this far.
ZL: And you have, man, and you're here. Six original albums of your own, a Throne record, various records with G.O.O.D. Music to talk about. But seriously, man, Yeezus. Bravo, dude. I mean, that is one of the most creative records of any genre I've heard in a very, very long time, and just in terms of your output, your most exciting-sounding record, I think.
KW: Oh, thank you very much. Yeah, I feel I was able to start making exactly what was in my mind again, not having to speak with the textures of the time. Cause, you know, Cruel Summer is definitely Kanye West, and there's something weird and kind of off about "Mercy," like when it has the high-pitched (impersonates noise), that type of sound. It sounds like art still a little bit, even though it obviously was a radio smash.
But when I get into the idea, the trap drums and things like that, certain songs that are blatant radio hits, it's like I'm speaking with today's textures. If you look at it 200 years from now, it's not going to stand out in the way that 808s or Yeezus stands out, and can completely push or redefine or make people say, hey, I completely hate that, or I completely love that, but let me just think differently. Because everybody is bound to these -- no pun intended -- they're bound to sixteen bars or eight bars, and the normal radio thing.
I was talking to Frank Ocean about this, and said, my mom got arrested for the sit-ins, and now we're more like the sit-outs. Like, sit off of radio, and say, hey radio, come to us. We need to find something new, because it's being controlled in a way, and manufactured in a way, that really awesome artists can make amazing music and not break as far past as, like, something that's very formulaic.
ZL: So it almost feels like a duty to you in a weird way? Having the peoples' ear, having peoples' attention for great music, to be able to say, well, if I'm not challenging them enough, I'm not challenging myself, not challenging radio, what am I doing?
KW: Yeah. I'm not trying to regurgitate myself. I showed people that I understand how to make perfect. Dark Fantasy could be considered to be perfect. I know how to make perfect. But that's not what I'm here to do. I'm here to crack the pavement and make new grounds, sonically and society, culturally.
ZL: You've done that with Yeezus. It's fascinating for us to sit here and talk about this record now, because normally when I talk to artists about records of this nature, it's in the lead-up to something. So we're all kind of playing a guessing game, you know what I mean? You could tell me what you think of the record, but I'm trying to find my way around it, the audience probably won't have heard it. In this case, it's been out for a minute, so we can reflect on it with the benefit of hindsight, too. You've seen what everyone else has had to say about this record, both good and bad. But I'm fascinated to know, today, how you would describe Yeezus, as someone who made it. How you would describe that record.
KW: I just think that I'm a production person, I'm a product guy, I'm a producer. So if I'm working on a John Legend album, I'm gonna try to give John Legend the best home for him to stay in. And I'm gonna try to push Pusha T -- no pun intended once again, this keeps happening to me -- to make the thing that represents what I like about his music the most. And then for me as Kanye West, I gotta fuck shit up.
ZL: And you did, dude, seriously. From the minute it starts. I mean, seriously. (Plays opening to "On Sight"). It's disgusting.
So you're up in the loft probably at this point, and you're kicking around ideas, and you're putting things together, and this sound comes into your head, and you're like, this is what I'm looking for?
KW: Nah. This is me going to the studio with Thomas and Guy-Manuel, who's Daft Punk. They had a synthesizer the size of that wall right there. This is just one session right here. This beat was originally like 14 minutes long, and that part in the beginning was something we completely just distorted, and I ended up making that the intro.
ZL: You know, I got a beef with you over this track. It's too short! I wanted more out of it. Cause it's one of the best beats on the record for me, and it feels like you're just getting warmed up. Was that kind of deliberate, to pull back after only a couple of verses and go, you know what, we're going to get on with the album now?
KW: Nah, it's just what I felt, like it should be.
ZL: Just a dance thing.
KW: And you know, originally "Blood on the Leaves" was supposed to be first.
ZL: Wow.
KW: Which, psychologically, I know would have changed certain Yeezus naysayers about the album. It wasn't that time for me. I didn't want to come up there and perform. A lot of times, music can be presented as a service position. But I wanted to take a more aggressive approach with music.
You know, people go on a vacation and say, you got the drugs, you got the music, you got the wine? It's in that territory. But I wanted to speak up and say, okay, so my voice is only compressed to express myself artistically through music. It's the only place where I actually have a deal, so I can only consistently make things in music. So I'm gonna take music and I'm gonna try to make it three-dimensional, like on Star Wars and the hologram'll pop up out of R2D2. I'm gonna try to make something that jumps up and affects you, in a good or bad way. Whether it's, I'm going into a scream in the middle of the track because that's just the way I feel. But I'm not here to make easy listening, easy programmable music.
ZL: No. You're so off the reservation on this album in the best possible way. Like you talked about, the way you use your voice in different ways, you don't rely on conventional rhyming flows. Your opening line, "Yeezus season approaching," you know? "A monster's awoken." You're laying it out there, this isn't My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy part 2. I'm wilding out on this record, straight away.
(Plays interlude from "On Sight"). And then from nowhere as well, we just get treated to these wonderful moments where, like you say, it's almost like a collage. Like you're sitting here going, you know, why can't I go into this? Why not?
KW: You can.
ZL: And you did.
KW: That's how life is. It's like a car crash. You could just be driving, and just out of nowhere it happens.
ZL: At what point did that very deliberate feel to the record, whereby breaks come in and join this really discordant electronic moments and everything seems to exist in this very contradictory but it works kind of way, at what point did that start to take shape? Because it is very omnipresent through the record as a whole, the way it flips between one and the other. Was that in your head early on, or did that come towards the end when you started to reduce the record?
KW: Well, I didn't reduce it. Rick Rubin reduced it. He's not a producer, he's a reducer. (Laughs).
ZL: But was it always part of the process for you, to say, why don't I take elements of this and this and just (claps hands together) bolt it together?
KW: Yeah. It's just the way I was consuming information in my life at the time. Negative information to positive information, from the Internet, just going to the Louvre, going to furniture exhibits and understanding that, trying to open up and do interviews like this, learning more about architecture. Taking one thousand meetings, attempting to get backing to do clothing and different things like that. Getting no headway whatsoever. It was just that level of frustration. This is what frustration fucking sounds like.
This is what frustration sounds like. For me, as Kanye West, I would not be Kanye West if it wasn't for Michael Jackson. I was with Quincy Jones a couple days ago at John Legend's wedding. Quincy was telling me, it wasn't just Mike, but these guys broke down the barriers. Of course you know Michael Jackson, he had to fight to get his video played because he was black. This is Michael Jackson. Michael Jackson's not even black, he's Michael Jackson -- you know what I mean? He's so crazy, how can he even be classified as this black artist?
So for me, in my life and creativity it's been challenging and everything. But I was able to ascend to massive heights because of the foundation that my mother and my father and my grandfather laid through civil rights, what Michael Jackson did with music videos and the ground he broke. There would be no Kanye West if it wasn't for Michael Jackson - that allowed him to be that, right?
Now let's take people who have issues with me as Kanye West. They classify my motivational speeches as rants - like "Why is he saying that? Why is he doing that?" Well I've reached a point in my life where my Truman Show boat has hit the painting. And I've got to a point that Michael Jackson did not break down. I have reached the glass ceiling - as a creative person, as a celebrity.
When I say that it means I want to do product. I am a product person. Not just clothing but water bottle design, architecture, everything that you could think about. And I've been at it for 10 years, and I look around and I say, "Hey wait a second - there's no one around here in this space that looks like me." And if they are, they're quiet as fuck!
So that means - wait a second - now we're seriously in a Civil Rights movement. Like people used to joke about - remember our South Park photo - remember how funny that was? Do you think there would be a Givenchy in the hood if it wasn't for that South Park photo. But no one thinks about that - no one thinks about the names I got called for wearing tight jeans.
ZL: You reference that in the record, you talk about that. "No one's liked him since he's been wearing tight jeans." Everybody knows you brought back real rap. I mean you reference that in the record.
KW: I'm saying y'all had all that, but I brought real rap back. I'm going to do dope things. And I wanna take this opportunity to speak to something, because I go to Hypebeast sometimes to look at the new things that're coming out. And every time my name goes up, there's a series of people who write just negative comments - they wanna joke around and say, "Why is he still trying? Why is he doing this?" They like diss me as a person for trying. Now mind you, I've brought 10 years of product that has added to humanity.
And now, what they don't realize when I say "Hey this is Pusha T, this is what it is" I have to remind Pusha T that he's Pusha T. Because the radio, if they're not playing a song of his that has an R&B hook on it or works at a certain level of trap tempo and plays in clubs, it's like we forget about that Clipse album that meant everything.
And the reason why I relate it to design and what we do in design is saying that's the music that us as creatives that wanted to get into design - we looked at Clipse as the gods, and this is our soundtrack to creativity. And it's not a trap beat that comes in on that soundtrack to creativity. No knock to trap, cause I did "Can't Tell Me Nothing" - I like it. But it's been commercialized to the point where - and I'm not mentioning no names - but people used to use the term "R&B nigga" but then it was "rappers." But then rappers didn't wanna be no R&B nigga. Now the rappers is the new R&B niggas! The rapper's the new radio! Like where's the culture at? Where is the culture at?
So then I scream - and I'm sitting in the middle of it - whether I'm at a dinner with Anna Wintour, or I'm at a listening session with Pusha, or me and Virgil are in Rome giving designs to Fendi over and over and gettin' our designs knocked down. Brought the leather jogging pants 6 years ago to Fendi, and they said no. How many motherfuckers you done seen with a leather jogging pant? Meaning when I see Hedi Slimane and it's all like, "OK this is my take on the world" - yeah he got some nice $5,000 jeans in there, some nice ones here and there, some good shit here and there.
But we culture. Rap the new rock n' roll! We culture! Rap is the new rock n' roll! We the rock stars!
ZL: It's been like that now for a minute.
KW: It's been like that for a minute, Hedi Slimane! It's been like that for a minute. We the real rock stars, and I'm the biggest of all of 'em. I'm the number one rock star on the planet.
CLICK HERE FOR PART 2
