The Breakfast Club - Kanye West interview with Charlamagne

Episode Date: May 1, 2018

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on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. The American Pronunciation Guide Presents ''How to Pronounce Kanye West'' Yey. What's good? How are you my brother? I'm good. Yes sir. I've seen a lot of pictures of you lately out and about. You know, so the first question is how are you?

I'm feeling good. The last time I think people heard about you in the news was Kanye West was having a mental breakdown. So mentally, where are you? I think I'm in a stronger place than I ever was after the breakdown, or I like to say the breakthrough. What do you think caused the mental breakdown? Fear, stress, control, being controlled, manipulation, like being a pawn in a chess piece of life, stressing things that create validation that I didn't

need to worry about as much. And you know, that this is the concept of competition and being in competition with so many, you know, elements at one time. On a race against time, your age, oh yo, you getting old. Race against popularity on the radio. Khaled got this song, Drake got this song on the radio.

He's playing to death, St. Pablo ain't playing. I could do that, I mean, I could take the whole interview. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Talking about. Yeah, it's interesting though, because you've been the guy that has always created a flow, not gone with the flow. So it seems like you were a little upset

that you weren't a part of the flow? It was weird, I was looking at, you know, we're doing Saint Pablo and the cultural impact is incredible, but I'm looking for other forms of validation when there's other frequencies and other currencies. So just because it's not playing on the radio, of course we had, you know, father stretches in the club and on the radio a bit, like it went to number one. But, you know, to put that same amount, if not more work into a piece of work, and then you're used to it coming out by graduation where everything is everywhere, you know, it's frustrating. And really, ever since the Taylor Swift moment,

it just had never been the same, the connection with radio. It's like, whatever powers that be, it was much harder after that. And then also, you know, L.A. leaving Universal, like, you know, he had that radio locked. So if you're an artist and you signed to a major label, you wanna be on the radio, especially if you popular, if you popping, you know,

if you one of the most famous people on the planet and people love your music and all the best artists in the world are coming to your concert and all friends is like, you know,chatting themselves at the shows and you're selling merch out like that it seems like okay radio should just be intact that it might be just a piece of information that i was missing that wasn't being expressed to me that i didn't understand because at the end of the day someone's controlling

it and i didn't i didn't understand it but the radio con the radio element was just one of the factors. There's the situation with my wife in Paris and all of the elements of you feeling helpless. You're feeling like, what can you do, a thousand, you know, I like went to Paris on that trip to protect her, but not protect her, you know, physically, but to go and just help her with her looks because she's in Paris. So I'm like, let me put my eye on it personally

while she's out in Paris and make sure she busts these niggas ass. You know, just so like get fly. And one of the things that she said that she heard is that they were coming to rob her and they had to wait till I had left. And when I find and that the people would have been strategizing and scheming on that for a long time. So when she probably got to Paris by herself, they were like, okay, this is our chance. Next thing you know, I get off on the flight the next day. And they were like, oh, okay, we got to like fall back.

And then, you know, when I left a couple days later, I'm on stage and I hear that my boy Sakai comes up to me and says, you know, your wife was robbed. And at that point, I didn't know the whole element or the whole story of what was happening. Previous to that, you know, just one week before that or two weeks before that, I had done a fashion show and I was 45 minutes late and they LeBron'd me, bro. Like remember when LeBron went to Miami? And they just killed him and like burned his like jersey and all that. It's like, I just done MSG.

Young Thug on stage, you know, and then go and plug in an iPhone with 16,000 people. Everybody in the audience, whoever you want to name and shit. You know, streaming, live, all this, like a breakthrough. And soon as I was 45 minutes late, I

felt it was the fashion community getting the right to say nigger without saying it to be like yo we know you come through stepping on next and all that and what you're doing your approaches things and stuff but if you get out of line boy we're gonna roast you and it affected me because I'm an artist and it affected me like emotionally it's like all these things were like almost set up to put me on meds to break me down the the robbery like I don't you know I don't know where that you know where that came from the you know was that a bigger plan a bigger setup you know also just being on stage four times a night,

I mean, four times a week, you get exhausted up there. So you was mentally exhausted, emotionally exhausted, physically exhausted, everything. Yeah. Did you go to therapy at all? Because I feel like this is a lot to unpack. And I'm sure you're the go-to guy for a lot of people.

So it's like, who does the go-to guy go to? So I'm sure you had to go to some therapist. No, I use the world as my therapy, as my therapist. Anyone I talk to is my therapist. I will pull them into the conversation of what I'm feeling at that point and get their perspective. Sometimes they'll be like, damn, I'm talking to Ye.

I'm not expecting to talk about this. I'll use, you know, I'll talk through things. Anybody that I'm around, and I put that as advice to people. I'm not expecting to talk about this. I'll use it. You know, I'll talk through things. Anybody that I'm around, and I put that as advice to people. It's like, use people around you as your therapist. Because they probably know more about you. Like, a therapist is like, does a crash course in Ye, and then comes and is like, want to give you, you know, some advice. And I'm not saying that the therapists are bad.

I'm just saying that I like just talking to acquaintance, friends, family, and I'll keep them on the phone for 45 minutes at a time, talking through things. It's like, it's kind of narcissistic. Talk about my problems, using the energy, even like just them being a sounding board and talking through it. So. But when it comes to

you know i guess mental health so to speak you seem to be in a good space mentally so how did how did you get there you just talked through it with people or was it music we see you returning to twitter now just getting these thoughts out therapeutically yeah but i'm not even the thoughts that i'm getting out on twitter right now and and that, you know, I think everything is therapeutic, but I'm not doing it as a form of personal therapy. It's just an innate feeling I want to express. I decided to use this platform to express some breakthroughs that I've had since going to the hospital. What are some of those breakthroughs? You said something about the fashion world

and how you felt like when you were 45 minutes late, they tried to cut your head off. It's kind of the same thing with Taylor Swift. When you got on stage and interrupted her acceptance, do you feel like whenever you're in spaces where you're tolerated as opposed to celebrated, they let, they remind you of that? Oh yeah, you get reminded all the time, but the reminders don't mean nothing to me anymore because I've broken it. You know, this is, this is a Hermes level existence at this point. You know, like you look at a

Birkin bag, the way it's made, the more scratches on it, the more, the more value it has, you know, so all those things, those pieces of the story have created who I am today. And I wouldn't turn down anything. Like I always, I would be thinking about you as I was recovering and always thought I'm gonna go and talk to Charlamagne first. And I just wanted to say like, there was elements about going to the hospital and having a breakdown or a breakthrough that was fire. It was incredible. The feeling was incredible.

You know, well, on the song St. Pablo, I said, I'm praying an outer body experience would happen so people could see my light and know it's not just rapping. You have the context of rap. Here go one related. I want to talk about rap. Here go one related to what I was saying about the fashion show. So if my name pops up in a publication, and, you know, today I don't want to use white, black, the black man's short, all too much of that.

I want to modernize, but I want to speak about the concept of racism as something that is something we're in. It's something of the past. It's something we'll break in the future. So I say this, you know, if it's a white publication, if they use the word rapper, they not saying that in a complimentary way. They trying to say that to not classify it in a Howard Hughes, Picasso's, you know, Einstein way. You should just say artist.

Yeah, artist or just person or something. Just who I am. Say my name and whatever. Just say my first name. Say half of my first name. Just say yay. And whatever someone takes from that, then cool. And then say what happened. Just leave it there. Don't put no extra sauce on it. So when they put the rapper, and then they'll say something I'll say that's like absolutely inspired. But if they put it in the, something inspired in the wrong context will come off as, I don't want to say crazy because I also want to change the stigma of crazy.

And I want to change the stigma of crazy and I want to change the stigma of mental health period and I Have not done no extra study on it. We at the beginning of it. We've got the beginning of the conversation But best believe I'm gonna take the stigma off the the word crazy But let's just say for now people will take something that that's enlightened, put it in a different context, and then call it crazy to try to diminish the impact and the value of what I'm actually saying. Yeah. I mean, that's why I say I go to therapy every Friday at 3 o'clock because, you know, sometimes you feel like Rafiki and the Lion King. Remember Rafiki?

Rafiki knew exactly where Simba came from. He knew exactly who Simba was and what Simba was about. But everybody would say, yo, Rafiki is crazy. Stay away from him. And one day Rafiki took that staff and hit Simba over the head and said, no, you're crazy because you don't even know who you are. Look at this lake and let me show you where you come from. I think you might have forgotten that you're Kanye West because so many people was trying to make you believe that you were lesser than who you truly are. Oh yeah.

If you hang around people who act like you aren't who you are, then you'll forget who you are. And I got a doper way, I've written it down. That was a ball. Yeah, tweet, you know. We should just tweet while we like. Let's just tweet that right now and shit. Speaking of Twitter, how does

that feel coming back to Twitter? Coming back to Twitter, because I would think that the hardest thing for Kanye West is to be quiet. He was quiet for like a year. I didn't have a lot to say. I had a lot to learn.

And, you know, right now, you'll document where I'm at. This is, I felt the need to speak at this point. You know, when you look up at five years from now, or ten years from now, there'll be,

I'll be even more, I'll have more experience. I'll be in a better I'll have more experience. I'll be in a better place than I was today. But it's good for you to see, you know, there'll be mistakes, there'll be flaws in the way I communicate today because we're human beings, we're flawed. I'm not media trained, I'm not studied in that, I'm not trying to say the right thing. I'm just saying exactly what I feel out of love.

When was the last time Kanye West felt like he had something to learn? Because that's interesting to hear you say, because you know Kanye is the guy who seems to know everything, to know what's going on as far as music, fashion. When was the last time Kanye felt like he had something to learn? Every day. Every day I'm trying to learn something. And every day I get, you know, I get afraid.

I'm fearful of things, and I just use bravery to overcome what I'm fearful of. I mean, the quote, what's the quote people always say? The wise man knows he knows nothing. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I'm learning. And now I'm expressing some things that I felt. And if they mean something to you at this time, then great.

If not, then, you issue, it just came down to information. I'm super hungry for information. I need information more than I need validation, more than I need finance. If I learn how to fish, then I can feed my family forever. more than I need validation, more than I need finance. If I learn how to fish, then I can feed my family forever. So I'm just constantly looking for the information, information. How do I set up a factory? So you feel like Jay was tossing you money as opposed to giving you the information?

You know the infamous line on 444 is, I gave Kanye 20 mil without thinking, He gave me 20 minutes on stage. You know, what was he thinking? Oh, I think it was 20 mil without blanking, whatever it was. He gave me $20 million. That concept that you gave me, that he gave me the money, that's what frustrated me because actually the money he got from Roc Nation. Roc Nation was managing me at the time.

That's something normal that someone would give someone a touring deal. It was a touring deal. But the fact that it was worded that it came from him, I'm a very loyal, emotional, like, artist person, you know. That made me feel like I owed more than just the money itself for the fact that it came from him you know it just put me under a bit more of a kind of controlled situation it's like and I don't I'm only acting out of love I don't need to be controlled I just need to be inspired and informed and I can be the best yay in that way.

But if I have the I gave you this on it and I don't have the full information of how it happened. Now that said I think there was some love in that because on Jay's part because he did have to co-sign for it when the Live Nations and these different companies wouldn't co-sign for me and I was in debt. Jay did have to co-sign for it when the Live Nations and these different companies wouldn't co-sign for me. And I was in debt. Jay did have to go up and say, I'm going to co-sign for you. Got you. So the thing is, it's one of those ones. Have you ever done something where you did something for someone that's positive, but it was something about the way you did it that kind of like blew the whole thing up?

Yeah. but it was something about the way you did it that kind of like blew the whole thing up. So Jay did something that was positive, but the fact that I didn't receive the information in the right way, I, you know, because I always feel like, man, I'm not here in Hollywood. I'm not here like my mom's past. I don't know who I can trust. I don't trust nobody. And Jay was big brother. His big brother.

Yeah. I feel like both of y'all might have reacted emotionally, though. Meaning that, like, you reacted emotionally when you was on stage and you ranted, and then he replied in a record. You know, that's not really his character to do something like that. To put out, like, this is what I did for such and such. I mean, yeah, but he did it in an abruptly way you know he could have went all he could release the entire record or something like that it was just a bar

you know. You gotta take over. Yeah could have went crazy got every single piece of information possible on my life and stuff know the finances all the you know So even like when I tweeted I was in debt, that gave me power. I took my power back because it's like someone trying to say like, yo, if you say this, you're not going to be cool no more. And it's like, man, my financial situation don't make me. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I'm in debt, now what? And I'm still yay.

Yeah, you did the now what and I'm still yay yeah you did the M&M and 8 mile let me say it about myself before somebody else can use it against me yeah that's what I call living your truth to live your truth so you know when you live your truth nobody can use your truth against you yeah you know um where you and Jay at now we good you know we we tweeting I mean we texting each other it's positive energy have y'all seen each other? I haven't seen him, but I could feel him. Or, you know. What keeps brothers like y'all from just, yo, come to the house man, let's have a meal,

let's sit down and talk face to face eye to eye. Because every time I see him doing an interview, whether it's with David Letterman or whoever, he's saying that's my brother, like I see him doing an interview, whether it's with David Letterman or whoever, he's saying, that's my brother. I love him. So what stops you all from just face-to-face communication? I would do it. Sometimes also when you have such similar personalities and people are creating their own existence and their own world and their own simulation or whatever, they need to do it on their own existence, in their own world, in their own simulation or whatever, you know,

they need to do it on their own. You know, when we were doing Watch the Throne, I was there, you know, in service to Jay. In service to myself too, you know, but I was there where any idea, the Givenchy artwork on Watch the Throne, like the first time you ever saw the Givenchy dog was on ham, was on a ham cover, that the Otis bead, the producers were working with, every piece of information was open source

directly for my idol, for Jay. And that's where we were at that time. And if that's the case, then, you know, yeah, he's gonna be around more. You know, if I went off and started focusing on clothes and building my company and my factory and my office and just focus on my family, all this. And, you know, that's what happened.

Jay said you went too far talking about his family. Do you feel like you went too far? No. Well, it depends on how you look at it. If we're family, if we're brothers, and we are family, then it's my family. If we're business associates and this, then it was too far. Gotcha. You know, respectfully. You know, I got to say, you know, I was hurt about them not coming to the wedding.

I understand they was going through some things. But if it's family, you know, you're not going to miss a wedding. You know, and I'm not using this interview to put any negative things, but I got to state my truth. And then that one thing happens and another thing happens, another thing happens, another thing happens. You just start coming up with all types of crazy ideas in your head and stuff. Like, why? And obviously it's me.

I'm like, wow, our personality and stuff. I'm like And obviously it's me, I'm like wow that personality and stuff, I'm like the cousin you can't bring nowhere, all this type of stuff obviously. But... That's interesting about the wedding. Did they not come, because in the press it was Beyonce has a problem with Kim, or they don't like all the Kardashian reality show

type thing, or maybe now in hindsight, maybe it was because they had their own issues that they was trying to work out. What do you think it was? I'm not sure. I'm past it, but at the time I was heard about it. Did you ask them? I don't think I ever asked him that question directly.

Maybe talking through someone I work with him and that kind of thing, but never directly. I think you got to address what bothers you, yeah? I think that's what might be causing, what causes the breakthroughs, you know, when you're not asking the things that you want to ask. Like those are questions you can get answers for. Like, some things you can't get answers for, but that one you can get an answer for. I don't think the answer fixes it.

True. True. I want to go back to something you said, speaking about fixing something. Like, how did you, as a man, forgive yourself for, you know, you said you feel like you let your wife down because you hired the security. How did you get over that?

Because that's not your fault. That's Chance. I mean, if she wasn't here, I would never forgive myself. You know, it's just bugged out when you're super high profile and this celebrity, the concept of celebrity. You're like as famous as the president, but you don't have national guard with you. You got to hire your own. You got to make your own like, you know, community guard. It's just a constant thing, basically.

The idea of security and the way it relates to fame and this and all that is like, yeah. Especially with, you know, social media and all these different things and, like, all... That's like, my wife doesn't even wear big diamonds anymore. We don't keep no jewelry, no money in the house, no, you know, name, high art, none of that. We don't keep any of, no money in the house, no name, high art, none of that. We don't keep any of that any place where our kids stay.

That's one of the things I talk to my therapist about, though, because it's a very vulnerable feeling being a father and a husband. Because our job is to protect and provide, but we're not with our kids 24-7. Our kids are at school right now. Anything can happen. You're not with your wife all the time, so anything can happen. So it's kind of like a very vulnerable feeling. Like, you almost got to let go and let God, so to speak. You know?

Do you think it's easy to be fearless when it's just you that you have to worry about? But, you know, now being a husband and a parent, does it make you more afraid to take more chances yeah but you got to stay brave you have to follow your gut feeling you know I have everyone has a position in the universe and you know I've been made and had the experiences I've had for a reason to be expressive, to, to, to go through going to the hospital, to go through the dynamics of, you know, family, brother, working relationships. You know, I got to follow my gut.

When I had that fear, I said, I have to be brave. And, you know, got to follow my gut when I had that fear I said I have to be you know brave and you know I think is uh interesting in this world that's like looking for sound bites like we talk about uh the Jay thing it's like you know what I do love Jay, and I don't have all the answers for every issue I've ever had. I don't have a sound bite for everything. That's fine. You know, like you said, sometimes language is an overrated form of communication, right? Like words don't always do it justice. I saw something you tweeted, and it was to the effect of,

some things can't be explained. Some things just need to be experienced. What's that? Respond on that a little bit. When you want to express yourself, a lot of times words can get in the way. Just this innate feeling that we have, you know, when someone's talking to you, trying to talk you into something or something like that, and you're just like, look, this just don't feel right. You know, oftentimes people playing ball, doing karate, whatever it is, they, and people, they don't mention karate since the 80s.

Karate used to be the shit, you know, but you see all the karate films. But it always be, you know, get out of your head. Go from your gut. Go from your chi. Do what you feel. And that's what I'm big on. Stop strategizing so much. Stop setting so many plays. Stop doing things only based in fear.

Like, the universe will assist you when you are acting in love. I tweeted this thing where I said, when you're acting in love, you're like a drop of water and you have the ocean as your army. When you act in fear, it's just you

and your money. Now, you can take your money and put it in bitcoin put a credit for them put it in cash for all your cash and then and then stand up to the ocean and who's going to win i'm i'm understanding i think your mind stayed a little bit more like when you was on stage and you'd be going into those ramps it was out of fear you were afraid at that time i think those rants i think to do the rants though we're brave i think we're in a place now where bravery is more important than perfection feeling is more important than perfection. Feeling is more important than thought.

People get so, they put so much thought into it, what's going to happen? So I actually think that the rants came from a place of bravery, and I had enough of the politics. You know, and that's the world that we're in right now. Like people are speaking their truth, you know, people are expressing themselves and, you know, I've been waiting for this. I've been waiting for this moment because it's always been

such a, you know, just a politically rand, you know know society and mentality that everyone's been in and stuff like don't do that you need to do this you need to you don't need to hang out with them you need to hang out with them yeah all this and like trying to please people and all that stuff and i don't feel like right now like people are trying to please people the same way they trying to please themselves that could be a bad thing too though, right? Because I feel like we're all public servants at the end of the day. We're here to serve the needs of the public. We're all greater than ourselves. Well, we definitely got to touch on the word bad and the idea of good and bad. Things just are. It depends on what side you're

on, if something is good or bad. It depends on what your agenda is. But of course we can speak in terms of that. You know, we haven't got, our language hasn't evolved to what either of us are feeling at this point. So both of us could be thinking in 2030, but we still got to communicate in 2018 because that's when this is dropping. Do we, though? Because you've always seemed to play it in the future. Yeah, I guess we don't.

I guess we could be in the future. Yeah, people got to catch up. Yeah. You talked about the politics, you know. You said on stage. I was saying that with the word bad, though. Bad, yeah. I still use bad because people are so raised on the idea of home team away team positive negative good bad

like I think negative gets too much of a negative rap you know you it's life is a balance. Yeah that's what we were talking earlier I was like I don't believe in any good or bad experiences I feel like everything's just a part of the process of life yeah you know when you think about bad experiences that have happened to you do you still look at them as just bad or did you learn something from them there's no bad and there's no enemies even people want to kill you are not your enemy. That's something I was gonna tweet and I was like, I feel this, but I don't know if people would take it in a certain way.

I've got a lot of ideas that are forward and I'm just gonna keep building like a mountain, a mountain of like a snowball of snowball ideas and just keep getting more and more getting more and more expressive as I go. So that's what the book is going to be? All those ideas? You know, I don't even know if it's a book.

It's like streams. It's all about streams. Everything is streams. That's why that's an amazing word. That's an amazing modern and futuristic word, streams. Streams of consciousness. Streaming music. Everything is just a stream.

It relates to water. It's like exactly where we will be. We will be, being an ultralight stream, we will be all just a stream. I feel like Kanye West the brand, well Kanye West the man is rebelling against Kanye West the brand. You know my email is not at Kanye West. I've retired from whatever that meant to be Kanye West, the brand. You know, my email is not at Kanye West. I retired from whatever that meant to be Kanye West. But I think the spirit, my spirit, my attitude

is a representation of fighting for your own truth. Like if I died tomorrow and stuff, it would live past me. The yay is like a Pac thing and stuff. That's your name, though. Just like Tupac, that was his name. Like, your mother gave you the name Kanye West. Yeah, and it means the only one.

You know, one of the incredible things I thought about when I went to the hospital is on Kendrick's album, there's this skit where Tupac is talking about the black man at age 30, right? And I'm like, I made it to 39. I made it to 39 with my opinion alive with my opinion I'm 40 and I still have my opinion you know one of the things that was incredible when I you know got out of the hospital was I had lost my confidence.

Kanye West with no confidence. It was like Michael Jordan with no jumping. Yeah. Like, what do you mean? Like, and you could see it. That's what I was saying, sunken place and all this stuff. You know, it's like and wow I never had the empathy for people who lacked confidence I had so much of it I didn't

know what it was like to be without it do you mean zero confidence are you just was less confident than usual it It just wasn't Black Panther, Superman level confidence. It was placed into the simulation and shit. I was like, completely could be molded and controlled and everything if that was the case, if I was, you know, I wouldn't speak up, you know, I'm going to speak up. Like, where I was when I got out of the hospital, it's, even when I did the next fashion show,

you know, it got all these good reviews. Yeah, because I was less confident. Because it's like, there, there, boy, that's exactly what we wanted. Ah, okay. Okay. So you traded authenticity for approval? I didn't trade it.

I just didn't have it. I didn't have me. I didn't have my confidence so that superpower could never like if i was like homeless any situation you could take everything you could black mirror me you could put on the media and say yay the goat all this type of and you will not take my confidence away. What exactly took Kanye's confidence? That's literally like somebody bringing Kryptonite to Superman. That's what it was.

Taking the herb from Black Panther. What took your confidence? I don't know exactly what it was. It had something to do, I mean, maybe a doctor could give an explanation, but it had to do with something with coming through the breakthrough. I like to call it the breakthrough and at the breakdown, uh, coming through the breakthrough that, you know, but also I think it was incredible because it was a forced amount. It was forced humility because I positive or negative, I like the humility. It just is what it is.

But previously, I would have looked at humility as more of a negative thing. Even if you read certain definitions, it's kind of got a negative vibe. But as we said before, no positive or negative. But also, that humility gave me time to grow. And everyone just backed off. A lot of people depend on me.

They ask for a lot of things. They're like, Superman, do this for me. You know, one of the things that, the irony, because people always talk about the sunken place. Yeah, you've seen the meme. They got the meme of you, and you're the main character from Get Out with the tears in your eyes. Yeah.

Chris doing the teacup. Yeah, I never saw the meme, but I could get the picture of it. The funny thing about that is that my wife, she's like, I'm responsible. You're like, Ye's mom has has passed away i'm responsible to take care of this superhero and my mom might have had these things where she made sure i never took my superman cape off you know i got this rap that say parents are the strippers strip kids of the confidence teach white dominance question your common sense. I've been washed in tradition to amaranths.

Hopped off the Amistad and made Amigad. Now, when I said it, I like it for this interview. When I said it on a song, I didn't like the frequency of it because it felt dated, because it touched on race too much. So it's not that racism. We definitely are dealing with racism, but I want to push future concepts. You know, now I'm giving you two streams of consciousness in one. I'm going to talk about my wife.

I also want to talk about Harriet Tubman on a $20 bill. We're following you. We're following you. You set it up good. That was the moment that I wanted to use Bitcoin, and I saw Harriet Tubman on a $20 bill. Why? It's like when you just see all the slave movies. That was the moment that I wanted to use Bitcoin. And I saw Harriet Tubman on a $20 bill. Why? It's like when you just see all the slave movies.

It's like, why you got to keep reminding us about slavery? Why don't you show us, put Michael Jordan on a $20 bill? But Harriet Tubman was a slave who rebelled, though. Like her and Nat Turner in a different frequency, though. They kind of were like you when you said you didn't feel like being controlled. Yeah, you know what? It's funny, like my boy Tremaine tweeted, you know, a picture of me and Virgil. And he said, Malcolm X and Martin Luther King.

And all these people got mad. It's like, how can you compare them to that? Man, I know this is gonna cause an uproar, but certain icons is just too far in the past and not relatable, and that's what makes them safe. Like, they'll let you go on the Grammys and talk about slavery and all that and racism because it's not talking about buying stock it's not talking about buying property yeah economic empowerment yeah it's not talking about

economic power you can complain as hard as you want on that platform and it but it's not scary well that's what ultimately got Martin Luther King jrr killed like it wasn't when he was fighting for civil rights is when he started talking about economic empowerment when he was playing things like the the poor people's march which was going to be the largest march on washington with people of all colors that were just pouring disenfranchised that's when they took martin out scary how's the comparison with virgingil? What was it? We were saying that he's more Martin, I'm more Malcolm. But there is a civil rights element to the ability to create your own industry. Because even when we did rap, everything we we got basketball and rap are both someone else's industry so you're always a player it took Michael Jordan a long

time to become an owner mm-hmm would that say because you mentioned Virgil like he's not a creative director for Louis Vuitton. I feel like he went from being an owner with Off-White to now being a player. How do you feel about that? Some people have to do things just to prove that they can be done. And whether they become the billionaire, da-da-da-da, on the other side of it, you know, Obama went into that office as a public servant in a service position, and it didn't matter the amount of money. It didn't matter the amount of ownership. The world, the world needed to see that this was a possibility. So for Virgil, it's like

the world just needs to see things. You know, I was afraid to speak the way I speak now. I was afraid to show you, you know, my office in Calabasas. I was afraid to show you this 300 acres that I just purchased that I'm building my first community on, my first five properties on, because, you know, I felt like it would be shut down. But it's not about me. Even if I got killed tomorrow and they shut everything down, the fact that I put the idea out

is the Black Panther shit. That it's a kid watching this in high school and a kid in college because at a certain point, you know, Pac, at a certain point he just had to message and hand the baton. He's like, I might not be here.

I may not change the world, but I may spark the seed in somebody else that may change the world. Yeah. And that's the thing. The problem is, obviously, self-preservation is the first law of nature. But people won't hand over codes completely to the next generation out of just protecting themselves. Like some of the stuff we touched on is very scary. And I'm having to be brave to talk to you about it. There's so many elements in our life that create an icon that you're supposed to look you're supposed to feel like you're not as good as the icon i have an issue with that i'm just going to say it backlash whatever i have an issue with ideas that are presented that make you feel less for your entire

life you look at human beings as more than men, or more than women. Yeah. And then when they do something that's human, they're like, oh, they've let us down. Oh, yeah, bro. When I was in the hospital, especially the black people that worked at the hospital,

and I was on that hospital bed, and I felt like they were like my family members, and I looked at them in their eyes, and I don't know, it was like the tribe or something. It's like as much as I want to say we're one race, one humanity, one living organism, you know, there is an element of the black celebrity in America. And when I was laid out in a hospital bed looking through the window at a black UCLA employee, I felt like I had let them down. I felt like they was looking at me like just shaking their head. Not just sad.

It's like, oh, that's yay. That's yay in that hospital bed. That's our yay, bro. Like, that's our yay juice. Like, he can't, like, they can't break him. That is your tribe, though. I think, you know, one of the big moments was when you met with Donald Trump. And I think that let a lot of people down.

You know, the funny thing is, I always think about that Dave Chappelle skit of the, was it Benjamin Bixby? Yeah, yeah, yeah. They created, you know. You're talking about the blind races, right? Yeah, the blind races and stuff like that. Clayton Bixby. Clayton Bixby, right. It's like, I felt like when I came out and expressed what I said and what I felt, that was almost

like a Clayton Bixby moment when everybody's head exploded. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Like, my yay. George Bush don't care about black people. Cannot in any way. This dude has to diss Trump at all points, at all costs. Everything about him. And ooh, some dynamics to this so many people around

me said don't express your feelings why your brand you're this you're that you're that you said you would have voted for that's the feeling you talk about right yeah that feeling yeah people, first thing they say is racism. They say, well, what makes George Bush more, any more racist than Trump, is the question my friend asked me. My response is, well, racism isn't the deal breaker for me. If that was the case, I wouldn't live in America.

That's some rich nigga shit there, though. That's some rich nigga talk. Oh, no. As a rich nigga, I deal with racism. I do. Especially in this gated community of all deception I deal with it so I I got love for Obama I got love for everybody every human being that ever existed but But I felt like Obama was perfect. He was almost like Nike or is.

Where if you, or Nike when I was at Nike, not Nike now, when I was at, if you sow in the good with everything and you got your whole thing planned out and strategized, if you have like a rogue character like me that comes in and says we need to do this for Chicago we need to do this that you're gonna take it with a grain of salt you're gonna be cordial you're gonna be all you know all that but you're like

you're not really gonna change anything you know like when you're not really going to change anything. You know, when I was at Nike, they weren't willing to change anything. They feel like who I have the most respect for. And I have respect for everyone at Nike, too. These guys, Mark Parker, you know, I just got to speak out as a parent, you know, and apologize to this man for ever speaking ill on his name and his company. Because he gave me that shot when we did the original Yeezy at Nike. And he was there with me. I was on a plane with him.

I was sketching. And he said, look at this sketch. I'm going to give this guy a chance. And he put me next to Tinker Hatfield. And it's me and Don C. making the first Yeezy with Tinker Hatfield and Mark Parker. That was the squad that made the original Nike Yeezy. So I just always wanted to

express that as a father. And, you know, when my karma comes, you know, I'll accept it in real time. All right, all right, all right. You know, like Kill Bill. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

You know what I'm saying? When that karma comes to get you. Well, people speak out of frustration sometimes. Yeah, but I got some karma waiting on me. So, but I just wanted to express that because we putting into the universe only good energy and every moment was a great moment because if Mark Parker hadn't given me that moment, then he helped turbocharge me and the combination of Louis Vuitton. I had a Louis Vuitton sneaker and Nike sneaker come out at the same time. So they helped turbocharge me. And I had a conversation with my friend in Chris's house down the street.

And you talk about some rich nigga shit, I'll tell you some just regular man shit that every man deals with. My girlfriend has a child. We have a baby. You make decisions in your life based on providing for your family. I love Nike. I love the Nike. I have to put the ED on it for the stockholders.

So, but when I was, you know, young, I used to sketch to swoosh everything, you know, so it was heartbreaking for me to have to leave Nike. But they refused to allow me to get royalty on my shoe. And I knew I had the hottest shoe in the world. I knew Yeezy was the hottest brand in the world. But I couldn't get royalties. They just said, look, you can make 5,000 shoes or 10,000 shoes, and we'll give some of the proceeds to your favorite charity. But it was nothing to build.

Now we're building factories. They wouldn't let me build anything. You're trying to create generational wealth. Yeah, and just put out more amazing ideas to the world. Both things. Generational wealth, more ideas. My friend was at Chris's house and expressed to me that he had received a royalty because he was a store. And I'm, Yeezy, and they wouldn't give me a royalty?

That was like the final straw. I was talking to Puma and talking to Adidas. The dude that didn't sign me at Puma definitely needs to lose his job and stuff. I'm not going to say his name, but can you imagine? Because with that infrastructure and these ideas and this connection I have, it wasn't no way it wasn't going to be a unicorn. You know, Yeezy's a unicorn. It's a billion-dollar company.

We were at $15 million two years ago. Wow. And we're going to hit a billion this year. It's never, ever been heard of. Does that make you anxious? Did that give you anxiety? No. Okay. It's what's fine. So I made the decision, and I left. And I went with someone that would allow me to build something. You know, I can call the CEO of Adidas directly. I have his cell phone.

Mark Parker wouldn't get on the phone with me. Really? I don't even think you should be apologizing to him then. If he wouldn't even give you a courtesy call. Yeah, you know, they'd say things like, I don't know why people like the Yeezys. And, you know, Ferris. So, and the funny thing is

look at Nike now. Literally all the people that ever work with me are like the hottest people at Nike now. Like they gave them the deals because we left and ripped their heads off. How did that make you feel when they leave you to go back to a place that stifled y'all, basically? Who you saying, you talking about like Virgil and Matt Williams and Don? Yeah, yeah, yeah. They got families, bro.

You know, these corporations, they provide an opportunity. These are my friends. They have families. If I'm not going to provide them the same opportunity, I'm not going to stand in their way either. But you are providing them the same opportunity. It's just more of a, y'all are building something as opposed to something that already exists now.

A lot of times, people like the room, the space. You know, when you get such a big corporation, you could build up your own brand next to it. If you're really, you know, close to me, it's just going to be my brand. So people, you know, want to build their own brand actually to be as far away from me as possible to just to get out of the shadow. It's kind of weird. It's kind of weird because, you know, you being Kanye West, the heat that you bring heats them up just enough. Like I wouldn't know a Virgil if he hadn't been Kanye West's creative director, creative collaborator, whatever you wanted to call it. Yeah. It's interesting how it all unfolds. And you feel different ways. There's a lot of, there's mixed emotions. They're like, oh, this is my crew. He's like the strategist. I'm the emoter. I'm like Tesla. I'm thinking of all the ideas, like Nikolai Tesla, not the car. I'm thinking

of all these ideas and Virgil's able to take all of those ideas and then architect them because he is an architect like you at school for architecture but also this is great training you know people gotta like i heard nike does stuff like sends people to business school but they're still like at nike of the day. Louis Vuitton is still Donda at the end of the day. So I know we go we're going to back to the presidential thing. So I want to go back to Virgil too, but go back to the president thing. I'm still trying to figure out what's the correlation between Obama, Nike, and how it relates to Trump? See, Obama came to me before he ran for office, and he met with me and my mother to let me know he was going to run for office, because I am his favorite artist of all time, because

I am the greatest artist of all time. It only makes sense. He got good taste. Yeah, he got his confidence back. No, I'm just saying that it's a flat statement. Up to this point, you know,

after me, there will be greater. You know, but this is, this is yay. Like, this is like past anything that's happened up to this point. This is like past anything that's happened up to this point.

This is the best. Even the Michael Jackson, Prince, Stevie Wonder, whoever else you want to throw out there. Because I throw out there, I throw Howard Hughes in there. I throw Henry Ford. I throw Walt Disney. I throw Steve Jobs in there

also. So you can't say it's a lie because something like that is a matter of opinion. Yeah. It's a barbershop debate. They're right. It's not even a debate. It's just the truth. Man, when you're the greatest, it's funny, man.

You know what I mean? Like Ali lived a great life. You got to know who you are. Absolutely. You got to know who you are. Absolutely. You got to know who you are. So Obama, it's like, yay, it's like my favorite artist. I want your support. I'm running for office. I'm like, oh, this is dope. You know, we're going to get a black president. This dude's Matt Coogs from, you know, Chicago. Then when I went on stage,

and it would have been good if this video didn't get out, but you saw the video. We called you a jackass. Yeah. Yeah. You know, he never called me to apologize. Just the same person that sat down with me and my mom, I think should have communicated to me directly

and been like, yo, yay. Yo, you know what it is. I'm in the room. It's just a joke. You know? I wonder why he said that, though. I mean, at that time, some words from Obama probably could have helped ease the situation out a little bit.

You know what I mean? As opposed to calling you a jackass and pouring more fuel on the fight. You know, nobody's perfect. I love Obama. I'm sure we'll hang out, go to Richard Branson's island, whatever. You know what I mean? It'll be cool. I just think that we were in a period where, you know, he had so much stuff to deal with.

He couldn't deal with a wild card like me. I think that's too unpredictable. Someone that wasn't being controlled by strategy and thoughts or someone who's acting on feelings. We knew that already up to that point, though. I mean, if anything, when you said George Bush don't care about black people on stage in front of millions live, people should have realized at that moment we can't control that guy. Yeah, you'd think people would have realized that, wouldn't you? Yeah. I guess they didn't.

So, and I kind of, I felt a way a little bit about Obama that I'm your favorite artist. You play Touch the Sky at your inauguration. And now all of a sudden, Kendrick and Jay and all the people you invite to the White House, like now, these your favorite rappers now. And I ain't got no problem with these rappers, but you know I'm your favorite. But I'm not safe. But that's why you love me. So just tell me you love me.

That's all, and tell the world you love me. Don't tell the world I'm a jackass. I'm fighting hard enough. Something about me going on stage was similar to what you was doing. Because I'm fighting to break the simulation, break the setup. That didn't make no sense. It's not that I'm particularly fighting for Beyonce's video.

It was every time a award show has ever done that. Just fucking with artists. We are HSP, highly sensitive people. Artists. That's what you love about us. So you're going to line up a whole bunch of artists and put us in some bum ass suits and shit. It's an idea from like 200 years ago. We dressed like we 200

years ago. Lined up. Trying to wait for a gold statue. And you're going to make us feel like shit. There's five of us and four of us got to go to the restaurant with our friends and be like, man, we ain't win nothing. Fuck that. Man, fuck that.

I remember you said that you was upset because Beyonce said she would refuse to perform at the BMAs unless she won the award. I think that was in Sacramento you went on that rant. Now you know what? I don't know if that's true. I don't, I honestly don't know if that's a true thing. That was like an alternative fact. That was fake news you put out there. No, someone told me that. Oh, okay. But I haven't

heard that from her and it's not confirmed. So I don't know if it's true. So that shows you, like people put thoughts in your head to separate. It's people who play both sides. People are switching sides. There's people who will literally talk to you, get a piece of information, drop a negative piece of information, talk to the other side, drop a negative piece of information on both sides. And then they show up and be like, what's up? So I don't know. So I could talk to them directly. it's neither here nor there to me but at that point when I was on my way to the hospital that was

that affected me because I'm pure it's like you don't appreciate pure it's like like you don't appreciate pure. It's like if you don't appreciate pure, this is like more an Obama thing, like you don't appreciate purity. You don't understand the amount of bravery that it takes to be pure into your 30s and be a black in America and famous.

Like the amount of bravery. Like Richard Pryor has this piece where he talks about that. He says like, there's no such thing as someone making it and remaining pure. Like I'm talking to you in a stream right now. I'm 40 years old. I got a family. I'm famous. I got a billion dollar business.

And I'm speaking to you in a stream. Yeah, that bothered me. But I'm not saying I have a problem with that I just want to put this out to the universe just to kind of give some people something to think about. No it's interesting it's like a very Gemini thing you know you see the traits you see the in you and in the pockets like what's wrong with expressing how you feel you know I mean you get to this point where you're Kanye West the superstar the brand and it's like they want you to be everything but human but you're a human being, human beings got emotions they want you to be everything but you but you yeah but were you gonna say that

no I'm just saying if you feel a way about you know something you heard that Beyonce did you feel a way about Obama calling you a jackass you should be able to express that oh yeah and then I also like had a problem you know that Obama's from Chicago and Chicago's the murder capital of the world you know I had a number of things that made me say just like how there's races Trump supporters there's things wrong like well maybe this could make a difference you felt like President Obama could have like waved the magic wand and got Chicago right it's not a magic wand you know what it's not his man. You seen that gray hair on that man?

You don't know what that man was dealing with. I mean, you can only imagine, but just it took everything from this, everything in that man's spirit and soul to not say, mention racism every sentence. This man was a Jackie Robinson of politics. You know, he was the first person to do it. So, you know, we want to be supportive and be aligned also. But this isn't like an absolute soundbite. This isn't an absolute opinion on either one. It's complex. This is complex because these are voices.

I might be president one day you know so I might be in that situation where it's harder for me to explain to the masses why something isn't happening that they feel that the concept of a president should be able to fix so to Obama I will say that I understand, bro. Like, I understand. I understand. Like, Jay-Z not coming to the wedding. They just had an altercation.

I understand. But I have my feelings also. So it's complex. When was the last time you even spoke to Obama? Was that the last time when he met with you and your mom? We did a fundraiser for a midterm for them in San Francisco. And we did a performance for them. And right before I went on stage, someone let me know that he had left. So you didn't even get to see him that day?

I saw him before. Before, okay, okay. Yeah. He left right before you performed? Yeah. So that made you feel a way? I felt a way, bruh. You just don't reach out to the brother, man. I'm sure you can get in touch with him just to let him know, like, I feel a way. He'll see this interview or we talk yeah i felt the way i'll be feeling away bro i'll be feeling like hey i'm feeling i got feelings bro he's feeling away bro i'll be feeling i'll be hey i'd be feeling a way because you these are people that you've assisted and helped them maybe

possibly get to the point that they're at and then when they get there they don't give you that same love in return or support in return when you need it? Nobody owes me anything but I'm still going to feel what I feel. And I understand that's the thing where sometimes a

conversation can help show respect for a situation. You know, look I couldn't do this because of these reasons, you know how it is, see my gray hair, it's crazy out here, I'm the leader of the free world, yay. Sorry for calling you a jackass, I appreciate your honesty, I appreciate your Gemini, your Tupac-ness, I appreciate that somebody's gonna do it because I'm president, I can't do it. But I appreciate that somebody is still willing to do it. That's why I get to interview with you,

you know what I'm saying? You go off truth, you risk your life for your truth. And the feeling, what was the feeling that made you say, you know what, I want to go meet with Donald Trump? And what yay are we talking about when that happened? Was that the yay with no confidence? Was that the yay who was trying to figure things out? What yay was that? Yeah, but I'm not going back down after that but I'm not going to back down after that.

I'm not going to let myself off easy by saying, oh, I met with Trump just because I was going through something. I ain't going to give the universe that. No, I'm going to face it, and they're going to face me. This was the Ye that wanted to do something to change something. And I would meet with him today and I would talk about Chicago. First, talk about some more things. We could eventually get into a lot of, you know, elements.

But we start there. Do you think he cares about black people? What do you think? No, I'm not even going to hit you with a question to your question. I hate when people do that to me. You can ask me, though. That's fire because you used the George Bush quote against me. You think he cares about black people?

Because it was early on when you met with him. He hadn't even really been, you know, acting president. Now we've got a year under our belt. Nothing good has come of Donald Trump being in the White House other than people starting to build their own. Like you talked about when you left Nike, because Nike wouldn't allow you to build your own, but I think Donald Trump is forcing us to build our own. It's a difference. Bro, I'm doing my landscape in the back of my crib. Rich nigga shit, right?

The, before we could put all the trees and add the beauty, you gotta break some things. If you keep on getting just the beauty, just the perfect thing, just the Obama walk through the hallway, he don't even, his feet don't even touch

the floor, he just floating. Give her a handshake and all that. You know what I mean? You get all of these images. This is what it is. This is what I wanted to talk about. The idea of black perfection. Like a black person can't be imperfect in the public eye.

That's a form of control. I'm here to show you imperfection. The beauty is in the imperfection, that this is possible. When I'm sitting there at the award show, and I'm like, man, this is the Staples Center. They play ball here. Y'all gonna sit through this

and let this mind manipulation tell you that you know someone i you know i'm not gonna put no energy uh we keeping a positive energy like that i know exactly what you're saying that's what they used to say about barack barack had to be perfect because if he wasn't perfect then we probably would never get another one. That's like the Virgil situation, right? I feel like Barack's brother a little bit. You remember when Barack's brother was talking a little bit before? He was like, shut up.

It's like, because it's complex with Louis Vuitton. As me and Virgil went and infiltrated fashion, which is what we did, we started to learn about it. We started, I got this thing, I'm going to tweet later, I wrote on my retreat that was, you know, you look at this mountaintop. And at the top of the mountain, it's all these tools for life. So you proceed, you say, I need these tools for life. So you proceed. You say, I need these tools in order to win at life. So you proceed to climb up the mountain. But you need tools in order to get up the mountain, to climb up.

You're collecting tools and stuff. By the time you get to the top of the mountain, you got more tools than was at the top and that's what i figured out about fashion you know i talked to virgil for an hour you know i realized that the concept of luxury and all this is what did i love about gucci what did i love about Gucci? What did I love about Louis Vuitton? I love Tom Ford. I love the artist. And Gucci created a platform for the artist. I love Marc Jacobs. And Louis Vuitton created a platform for the artist.

It's a battle that y'all don't know about. Francois Pinault, Bernard Arnault. I don't know who't know about. Francois Pinault, Bernard Arnault. I don't know who those people are. Francois Pinault is Balenciaga and Gucci. Okay. Bernard Arnault is the richest person in fashion. This is the head of the LVMH group. Like, I've been to his house before.

I've shaken hands to do a deal before with this man. And he's one of my idols, just like Jay-Z. He's cold. You know, he made culture before culture, there was culture. Cause he set the platform before there was an internet to hire John Galeano from St. Martin's, one of the Louise Wilson students, hire Mark Jacobs. He had the vision. This man is a visionary, you know. He is one of my idols.

I love Bernard. I feel his energy. He loves me also. So this is how it works. They have two main, main, main schools that have raised the fashion icons. Parsons in New York and St. Martin's in London. Bernard Arnault and Pino, that's their recruiting, you know, camp. They go there. And now the breakthrough of Virgil is now we have someone who's come from Donda, has come from the school of Kanye West. And I hear people talk about, oh, he didn't go to school. Oh, we went to school all right.

All right. We went to school. We was doing JPEGs in Japan. And we were making Photoshop so much and not making clothes that we we started just joking about the jpegs like did you shrink my jpeg did you did you did you dye my jpeg and shit we because we couldn't figure out how to actually make the clothes so we just do it in photoshop and virgil became the fastest photoshop artist that i've ever met in my life we'd be sitting in a you know, you know right before we went to Fendi

You know just photoshopping things cuz your intern definitely when if we endure a Fendi, but we ain't do shit, bro We ain't get to do nothing man. I was just happy to have a key card, you know Did it upset you because you said you had mixed emotions when Virgil? Got the got the job. Did it upset you? Because that's something that you wanted. Like you was verbal about wanting in on one of these fashion houses and being able to create for a Louis Vuitton or a Gucci.

Well, it's the thing we said about, you know, the tools at the top of the mountain. You know, in the process, you gain all the tools. It's the journey. In that journey, you gain everything you need. Now we got factories. You's you know there is some talk about validation need or not need for validation there is some validation in the fact that someone that I came up with is now the head of Louis Vuitton you know and I said you

know honestly you know that honestly, you know, that's, that was a slight. I shouldn't have worded like that. Virgil is the head of menswear. Nicholas Gaskier is the head of womenswear. Well, Bernard is the head. So

I just want to word it straight up. Because every time we say head, it's like a little bit of a slight to Nicholas. And, you know, Nicholas is the god, like maybe the best top, top number one designer in the world. Did Virgil call you before he took the job? Because that was something that you wanted. So did he call you and be like, yo, let me at least consult with you or ask you if there's something I should do? Or did you hear about it on the internet like the rest of us? No, he made the call two minutes before he hit the internet.

Wow. So you didn't know about the meetings or the stuff that was happening beforehand? No, no. I was in Berlin with Rocky and he told me, he's like, you know, we're looking at, I'm looking at Louis Vuitton, I'm looking at Versace. Like he, you know, he knows like, yeah, I'm wow. You know what I mean? So it's all, like, the fact that he had to work with me for 10 years,

it's like, my reputation's kind of like Devil Wears Prada or something like that. So people are mindful in the way that they give me information, too. So he didn't, he wasn't like, I'm going to Louis Vuitton. He's like, I have Versace, I got this, I got, kind of laid it out. Then I showed him the Season 6 campaign, I showed him Paris Hilton and this and that. I was like, we're about to drop this.

And we was doing music with Rocky. But he knew he was going to leave the town at that time because he did System Magazine. System Magazine is an LVMH magazine, and whenever they're about to prep up a new talent, they put them on System Magazine. Just to kind of put it in the ethos. You know, this is who we gonna you know we gonna put here as

far as getting the job or taking the job or is it cool yeah bro like it's a cool job to have they got that platform they got thousands of stores they got you stores. They got, you know, resources. You know, I had met with Hermes, you know, maybe a year and a half prior to that. I met with Bernard Arnault. We had a deal, you know, on the table that we shook on. I did some performances at the museum. And then three months later, the deal got dropped at the board. And that set me back in apparel a bit when that happened. Because in order for me to even negotiate the deal, this is after I did season one with Adidas, I had to go to Adidas and say,

okay, I know we had the best fashion show, all this, but Louis Vuitton is going to back Yeezy and the Kanye West company, and these guys are masters of clothes, so I need you to indemnify the apparel. I got paperwork on it. And Adidas, they're like, all right, okay, cool. We're cool. We just do the shoes.

So if you notice, ever since then, there's never been Adidas Yeezy clothing. So when I did, so this happened right after the fashion show in February. I met with Benara No in February. We shook our hands on the deal. And then, you know, his son called me and they said, you know, it's dropped at the board. We don't think it's going to be profitable before we run out of money. They only wanted to, you wanted to invest $30 million

into it. You need to invest at least $100 million when you're making a new brand. Only $30 million. I know that was a stunt though to say only $30 million. But people need to get higher ceilings and shit. We've got to talk with the ceilings. This is Diddy talk. You know what I mean? This is what Cali be talking about. This is that, you know. So when they pulled on the deal as I went into season two,

we didn't have any production partner. And the collection never went to market. The first collection when Adidas had lineups and there was nothing to fall back on, on the second collection due to that negotiation. So the hurtful part of it was... That's why, okay, that makes sense. That's why you never seen no clothing. Yeah. So the hurtful part was they agreed to support my clothing and guess who was one of my designers?

Virgil. Virgil. Then they didn't do the deal and Virgil didn't have anything to do. What'd you say? Virgil didn't have anything to do technically. Yeah, I mean he was doing Off-White but

at that time we had our designers were Virgil, Don, Jerry, Fear God, Demna. Demna is the head of Balenciaga. Demna was in the apartments. Me, Virgil, Jerry in this apartment one by one making season one. I wore this big sweatshirt, Vetements sweatshirt. I remember. You know, some people say Vetements, right? And then, you know, shortly after,

it's not because I wore the sweatshirt either, but shortly after, Demna went to Balenciaga and now Virgil's at Louis Vuitton. So transitions in life, as a business owner, these things are hurtful when you have like, you're working with a talent like Demna, you're working with a talent like Virgil and somebody comes through and says bam I'm gonna

take Virgil I'm gonna take culture explain to me because I don't know nothing about fashion yeah so why would Virgil leave a brand that seems to be successful off-white it seems to be growing yeah you know I mean why would you leave that brand to go work for a Louis Vuitton, a brand that's already established? Like, why wouldn't you pool your resources and try to make Off-White that next high-end luxury brand? Because Off-White has 5, 10 stores. Louis Vuitton has 2,000 stores. It's like taking the job as a president. You know, Trump, you see Trump's name on all type of buildings but he

still took the job as president you have like you know there's conversations about a creative director role for me at adidas it's like okay i got my brand it's this billion dollar brand this unicorn company is growing but to be able to go and be able to direct Adidas at all those stores is a, you know, it's another conversation. I'd be open to the conversation of taking a job like that. How did that help Chicago though? Because like you said, you become president, so now you're over 2,000 stores as opposed to focusing on this one.

Did that help Off-White grow any? Hell yeah. Okay. The price of Off-White went up as soon as he went to Louis on this one. Did that help Off-White grow any? Hell yeah. The price of Off-White went up soon as he went to Louis Vuitton. Okay. Not the price, but the value of it. The validation of it. Because Louis Vuitton, Louis Vuitton is the... You know, Hermes is really the top luxury house, what they call luxury houses.

Like, anybody who knows about luxury, anybody, Bernard will say, Hermes is the top luxury house, family- call luxury houses. Anybody who knows about luxury, Bernard will say, Hermes is the top luxury house, family-owned, all that. Why do we always need validation from white people or rich people? Because our cape got taken away when we was three years old.

We're broken. We're in a simulation. We want our BMW. We want our house. years old. We broken, we in the simulation. We want our BMW. We want our house that, we wanna pay all our money for the house. We wanna buy this dress for our wife. We wanna do this, we wanna get our kids in school. We want this, you know, this championship trophy.

We want this jewelry. We want all these different things. Like people, we not monks, we in the simulation. We in it, you know what I'm saying? I can't talk nobody out of wearing Gucci. This is me. I had to come out the other side of the hospital and have a Russell sweatshirt on or something

like that. That's me. People be calling me homeless all the time, but this is my confidence where I don't wear branding like that and put words and da-da, but I'm Samye too. I can, but everyone, they have to have that confidence. When I'm yay too so I can but everyone like they have to have that confidence like when I see when I see branding I see insecurity you

know I see and I see people buying you know buying security you know buying it back through a brand you know protection a badge don't don't mess with me in high school I guess supremo youremo. Just to put the agenda for a second of Yeezy and of what we're doing out is our mission and what we fought for is to be able to take the best talents in the world and land that price point, which we haven't done yet. But that's what's interesting about this interview. You get to see the steps. It's like when you see early Jeff Bezos.

You don't know he's gonna be Jeff Bezos. It's just like he's standing in front of a warehouse. But we're not interested in the concept of high fashion, the concept of luxury. I know, the concept of luxury. I'm changing the idea of luxury. I think luxury is space. I think luxury is time is a luxury. Friends are a luxury.

Getting your vision out is a luxury. The ability to afford something is the luxury. Not to not be able to afford it. To go in and be like, oh, I can afford this. That's the luxury. That's the Ye everybody fell in love with, though. That Ye who was so human. That Ye who cared about things bigger than brands.

I hear you talk about family now. I hear you talk about friends. I hear you talk about time. Those are something we all have. Those are valuables that we all possess, regardless of what our finances are. Yeah. And that's the thing that we had to crack the code we the reason why we went into fashion wasn't to stay there or be there just do you know cool high price stuff it was actually to take the incredible HSP, highly sensitive people that usually end up in a fashion house

and bring them to some place where they could consistently connect with the public. Yeezy eventually will be closer to a relief company. If there's a disaster, we're going to dress, you know, we're going to bring clothes and water, you know, the same design perspective that can sell a $300 t-shirt. We're just going to give it. And eventually that's who we'll be. You'll look up five, 10 years from now, and Yeezy will be the biggest service provider of apparel. And one by one, every year, we're gonna take one,

two, three, 10 people that would've normally ended up in a fashion house, would have went to Nike, would have went other places, and we're going to Calabasas. We're building factories. That's dope. You know, that's dope. You know, I'm sitting there listening to you talking. You know, I feel like Kanye from four years ago would have taken the job at the fashion house. I don't feel like the Kanye I'm talking to right now would take that job at the fashion house. I am in too good of a position to take a job where I have to be away from my wife and my son and my daughters. That just don't make no sense. For what? Family is your most important currency. I got a cousin that lived in Florida.

I flew out here. I'm trying to get as much family as close to me as possible. That's one of the reasons why Kim won't end up in a hospital. She got her family close. Do you feel like you're in a position to change things now with your art? Like really change things? I always was. You know, it's my place in the universe.

I've just been distracted. I've been distracted and manipulated and I allow things that, you know, my mama made me to never be manipulated and gangstered and pimped and all that type of shit. But somehow stepping into the music industry it happened You know like the music industry is set up for you to have just enough money to afford a car pay for your kids a House and be on tour for the rest of your life till you die It ain't set up for you to literally go by an album Island like Phil Knight it ain't set up for the artists to win. an island like Phil Knight.

It ain't set up for the artist to win. It's like boxing. You know, more people end up retarded than rich. Do you feel like when you was in debt, did that contribute to your lack of confidence? Nah. I'm glad to hear you say that, because that makes me think, like, damn, some money is what made him feel confident.

Nah, that's why I tweeted that. Because I knew I had the power. That's why I tweeted Mark Zuckerberg. And I tweeted the debt. The reason I tweeted to Mark Zuckerberg is because he wanted to meet with me. And I hung out with him a few times. And I got out with him a few times and I got respect for him. And but when I was talking about my ideas, there was really like not a lot of follow up to that. And I always see these these guys, they'll go and support a guy that's got like one idea that they can capitalize off of. And then you get a guy that's proven

and like done the impossible in every single field he's ever put his mind to. And I'm like, yo, help me get a valuation, right? For my company. And it would be people who know how to do that. And I'm hanging with them, right? And they don't show me how to do that. And it's like, why are you keeping me misinformed?

I felt like learning the valuation of just even the company and what I built was like a slave getting a Social Security number. It's like I got my rights. I know I'm worth this much. And everyone in Hollywood knows exactly who Ye is. Every agent, anybody they know Ye is Ye. In the hospital, on stage, rent, in debt or with a billion dollar company. Like the spirit is here and the only thing that can hold me back is a lack of information. But information is harder to find than you think. It's secret codes.

Like even when Jay-Z gave a little bit of codes on 444, there's people I know that tweeted or were texting each other like, he's giving codes away, he's giving information. But it's like, yo, this is open source. That's the basics. Yeah, I like, I like, cause Elon Musk could be like, yo, here's all my plans.

But he's the only one that can pull it off. I just, you know, we work hard on that color palette right there. I just tweeted it today. Like, yo, because it's fire. You know what I'm saying? I'm sure there's going to be some people that copy it one by one. That's great. The idea is out there.

You're hanging out with people and you're saying I want to do all these things and it's just not taking you seriously and it keeps you in a position to be you know managed in a way so my my last and final manager was Scooter Braun right I've had every manager G Rob Roberson, Jay Brown, Izzy. Izzy. You just parted with Izzy. What was that about? I just can't be managed. But what's dope about Scooter, though, at the end of the day, where you really got to give him his props. One thing is he has, his parents adopted a black child.

His brother's black. So this is a Jewish guy who understands business, understands all this, but also understands how to communicate, you know, on a personal level with a black person, like on a brother level. So me and Scooter would just get on the phone and we'd talk to me for hours. And that information meant everything. He was my, let me, third person,

he was Kanye West's gateway drug to business. Because before that, it was always like, you were an artist, you were a rapper. We love you for the music, yay. Don't think about nothing, don't think about business, blah, blah, blah, blah. And I would just, you know, the thing we was talking about before when we talk about Obama and Trump in the other room, we talk about trust me. Like, I would just trust, just trust the manager. Let them do everything. Let them handle everything.

Let them handle, you know, let them hire your business manager or this and that. And you get a manager on manager on manager. And then it becomes one big racket where it's like the tour guy is talking to the label guy, is talking to the manager, is talking to the guy that sold you the house, and talks to you, blah, blah. And then you're just trapped. You're not in control of your life anymore.

And at that point you could be easily manipulated. A whole album with Paul McCartney could end up becoming a single for Rihanna because, you know, you're trapped in this box of the idea of your perception, music industry, this, that, that. So the funny thing I knew I wanted to say in this situation is like,

Scooter Braun is Kanye West's Kanye West's gateway drug to business and maybe the death of the music industry as we know it. Really?

Yeah. Why? Because artists are businesses. We're not just artists. Artists shouldn't have managers. Artists should have

CEOs. That's how I feel. I didn't put no thought in that. You know, it's like, you know, say there's a lot of people who's going to have a problem with that statement. I'm going to say how I feel. So that means, okay, how many kids are going to business school right now? Warden, Harvard. You think they like, let's take somebody, Travis Scott. Right, they probably listen to his music. Uzi, somebody like that, right? How many Uzis and Travis Scotts are there?

And how many business people are there? Right, I'm gonna think it's probably less Travis Scotts and Uzis than there are business people. So wouldn't you think a Travis Scott would deserve the same amount of employees as Dropbox in his first year so that someday he can IPO

for $10 billion like my friend Drew just did with Dropbox? But with artistry and artists, what's the point where you IPO? Everyone want to talk to me about getting out I'm out just to get out yeah but isn't that what the 360 deal is though isn't the 360 deal kind of like the label saying we recognize artists as a business now now we want a piece of all of their business 360 deal make me think of Harriet Tubman on the $20 bill. It's

still some old slave shit. So all this is yours? Yeah. 300 acres? Yes sir. And what you gonna do with it? I'm gonna build five properties so it's my first community. I'm getting into development. I'm super anybody's ever been to any of my cribs knows i'm super into developing homes it's just the next frontier for me to the to develop so that's why you designing boots and so you could so you could do the hiking yeah see you got the you got the nike you should have the easy boots and nike's is trash for hiking but listen it's crazy though because you you got the Nike shit, I have the Yeezy boots, you know? Nike's is trash for hiking.

But listen, it's crazy though, because you got this whole plan, 300 acres of land, you want to build a community on it. Why does the Kanye West don't need nobody? So that goes back to what we was talking about with Trump. You don't need to meet with Trump. You yay, you the head of state of your own shit. Yeah, I feel that.

You know, but i love real change i love you know challenging the norm i love i love people who don't love them i love the fact that they speaking up and everybody's just giving their opinions everybody's expressing themselves i love i love that i've been waiting i just like i've been waiting for this moment in time. It's just like a yay moment in time and stuff. You know, my dad is an activist and my mom's activist. We was in

marches and stuff. I feel like that energy all coming to a head now. I refuse to believe that your mother would love Donald Trump. Hmm. I got a different opinion from my mom. True.

True. But what about when you see, like, because, you know, it's people that's watching this right now, and they're like, yo, you know, Donald Trump is getting our family deported, and, you know, like, especially you right now, you got this whole economic empowerment thing going on, but you got a guy like him who's clearly trying

to marginalize and oppress people. People that look like you. He don't want to see people like you come up. Can you still love a person like that? Hmm. I don't have all the answers that a celebrity's supposed to have, but I could tell you that... When he was running, it's like I felt something.

It's like the fact that he won, it's like it proved something. It proved that anything is possible in America. That Donald Trump could be president of America. I'm not talking about, you know, what he's done since he's been in office. But the fact that he was able to do it, like, remember when I said I was going to run for president? I had people that was close to me,

friends of mine, like, making jokes, making memes, talking shit, and now it's like, oh, that was proven that that could have happened. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So I get what you're saying. I felt the nonconventional, you know what I mean? Even from what we're doing in fashion

to me being the kid with the pink polos to to me being outspoken, to me being ostracized because of the Taylor Swift thing or the George Bush thing. Or, you know, who I'm dating, who I'm marrying, what I'm talking about. Like, all of this is like an outsider thing, you know. So when I see an outsider infiltrate, I i connect with that so maybe that's what you like the idea of yeah not necessarily the idea of donald trump but the idea of an outsider infiltrating yeah i like that it showed you that anything is possible shows you that it doesn't even like Virgil working at Louis Vuitton, Trump being in office. It's a time for the unconventional. I'm very I'm not a traditional thinker. I'm a nonconformist, you know, so that relates to the nonconformist part of me.

Now, you know, but I'm also I'm a producer. I like to segue things. I like to take Otis, chop it up, do it like this. So what's the Ye version? The Ye version would be the Trump campaign and maybe the Bernie Sanders principles. That would be my mix and stuff. But I think both are needed. You know, I hit the glass ceiling. You ever seen a bird fly into a window?

Hell yeah. They don't know it's glass. That was me, when I hit that hospital, that seen a bird fly into a window? Hell yeah. They don't know it's glass. That was me. When I hit that hospital, that was a bird flying into the window. And, you know, I could have, you know, not made it out of it. But I survived and shit. But it's, um. Are you scared of that happening again?

Um. You having a breakdown, a breakthrough? Nah. Nah. Nah. I'm happy it happened. I'm happy to see, have gone to the other side and back. You know, there's some things, when it happened, I do want to, I want to speak on. I want to point out the moment when you're in the hospital bed and you're next to your friend and you tell them, don't let this person leave my side. And they put you inside of an elevator and take all your friends away from you.

That was the scariest moment of my life. You thought they were going to drug you or kill you? I thought I was going to get killed. And, you know, my wife wasn't in town, so I told my boy Don and my boy Sky, like, don't leave my side until my wife gets here. And they have this moment where they're forced to leave your side. That's something that has to change. You know, it's like if a pregnant woman is, you delivering a baby guarantee whoever the people her sisters the dad they get to stay next to them till the baby is delivered not leaving my wife in that situation yeah hsp you you were paranoid of everything you don't believe nothing you're

just seeing through all of the simulation everybody's phony everybody's an actor all this shit and then they make your friends the only people you believe in leave your side. I can't express to you, like, how traumatizing that moment is. And then you waked up, drugged the fuck out. Mm-hmm. So they put you on medication? Yeah.

Are you still on any now, or...? Oh, most definitely. All right, what they got you on? I ain't gonna say. Does the medication help? I mean, you don't wanna tell us what it is, but does it help? It's an imperfect solution. Just calm me down.

But there's a lot of ways to calm down. I don't want to calm you. Yeah. What do you need to calm you for? Let you be you. Don't you feel like that takes a little bit of your superpower away, though? There's power in being controlled and calm. You know, X-Men really understanding how to really use his uh power

or superman that's me this is like once the kryptonite is gone i got the confidence everything is possible building acres wraps stating of tours designs companies ideas to ignite the next generations like everything is possible you know and I'm just a vessel and that's my job in the universe as a servant to the world I have to be me I'm not as good of a servant if I'm not yay you are yay though almost definitely you know you are yay and I mean like I guess why I kept asking, like, well, first of all, let's talk about something that I know is therapeutic for you, music.

Yeah. I'm looking at all of this, this wild outdoors, this wilderness, is that why you went to Wyoming? Yeah, you know, for what I'm doing, and I played you some of the music, and you see where I'm going, I wanna create music that's therapeutic. You know, like,

I feel real friends in the territory of what we're creating. Do you feel like the lifestyle of your wife, the mother-in-law, like that whole family, do you think that plays a role in how you were feeling? Like, did it get to be too much? Because you're already a superstar, but then you think that plays a role in in how you were feeling like did it get to be too much because you're already a superstar but then you take that superstar element and add it and it's just like when do you have privacy like it seemed like paparazzi is always around yeah

paparazzi can it can't stress you out but it's all in the inner peace that you can find. You said you don't trust people. Do you trust your in-laws? Because, you know, we look at the world, and it seems like everything's a storyline. Do you trust that they won't turn your life and what you're going through to a storyline? And, you know, of course I'm going to give you a slick answer on that because... You got to go home. I got to go home.

What you expect. But like right now, we're writing part of the story. Just by even doing this and speaking. I like the way that my wife communicates it and documents things. You know, as an artist, you know, I think it's good to document ourselves, document our now,

see if we can recognize ourselves again in a different light, in a different life. What would, um, what would, what would college drop out Kanye? If he was looking at pictures of Kanye now, what would he say? I think he'd be happy satisfied and he would believe it you know people say oh I wouldn't believe it I always believed it

I always know what it is you know this documentation right now this is just the age 40 this is a version of a college dropout yay we standing on my first property 300 acres yeah so i'm going to be one of the biggest real estate developers of all time like some what howard hughes was to aircrafts and what henry ford was to cars and just the relationships that i have with architects my my understanding of, like, space and sacred proportions, just this vibe, this new vibe, this new energy. Like, I'm tired of the McMansions, all the Spanish-roof homes and stuff like that.

Like, that shit whack, bro. Like, everybody house whack. It's trash, bro. I don't go to... Except for, let's just, like, Howard Bakken or something.. It's like the one of the few architects that I like their homes I was gonna ask you what's next cuz he's always Predicted what he was gonna be so that's what that's that's the goal Yeah, we're gonna develop cities

Had enough of this country ever dreamt about starting your own? I planted the flag. This is mine. I own this. It's surprisingly easy. 55 gallons of water, 500 pounds of concrete. Or maybe not. No country willingly gives up their territory.

Oh my God. What is that? Bullets. Listen to Escape from Zakistan. That's Escape from Z-A-Q-A-Stan on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Hey guys, I'm Kate Max. You might know me from my popular online series, The Running Interview Show, where I run with celebrities, athletes, entrepreneurs, and more. After those runs, the conversations keep going. That's what my podcast, Post Run High, Hi, I'm Dani Shapiro, Listen to Post Run High on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. and the time had suddenly come to share that past with your child? These are just a few of the powerful and profound questions

we'll be asking on our 11th season of Family Secrets. Listen to season 11 of Family Secrets on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.