What's there left to say about Kanye West? Certainly, West himself would have plenty to say. After all, he's the guy who, during an NBC telethon to benefit the victims of Hurricane Katrina, proclaimed, off script, that "George Bush doesn't care about black people." He's the guy who stormed the stage at the 2009 MTV Video Music Awards and announced that his good friend Jay-Z's significant other, Beyoncé, should have won the prize just bestowed upon the perpetually in faux-awe Taylor Swift. He's the guy who, in front of the large fabricated-mountain set on his recent "Yeezus" tour, has alternately taken aim at Hedi Slimane, Bernard Arnault, François-Henri Pinault, and Nike; likened himself to Steve Jobs, Walt Disney, and Michelangelo; embarked on a long and winding monologue about Lenny Kravitz (at which Kravitz was present); and asked Google head Eric Schmidt to invest in his design firm Donda (named after West's late mother)—all while still retaining the level-eyed insight to hold Le Corbusier and Q-Tip as inhabitors of similarly lofty creative planes. A lot of it, of course, is just old-fashioned "I'm the Alpha with no Omega" hip-hop theater. But some of it seems to emanate from some deeper, less performative place for West. Lest we forget that before he was a pop-star polymath, he was an in-demand producer whose aspirations to become a rapper in his own right were thoroughly and consistently dismissed by the very people who were profiting from his skills as a songwriter and beat-maker. He's also the guy who, after a near-fatal car crash in 2002, turned the experience into a song called "Through the Wire," which he rapped while still recovering from the accident, audibly struggling to spit out rhymes with his jaw wired shut. And he's the guy who, over the last decade, has turned out six creatively diverse, distinctively classic solo albums filled with almost as many left turns as hits, from the earnest grit of 2004's The College Dropout ("Through the Wire," "Jesus Walks") to the lush musicality of 2005's Late Registration ("Touch the Sky," "Gold Digger"), from the anthemic grandeur of 2007'sGraduation ("Stronger," "Good Life," "Can't Tell Me Nothing") to the auto-tuned poetry of 2008's 808s & Heartbreak ("Love Lockdown," "Heartless"), the brilliantly realized rushes of bombast and vulnerability on 2010's My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy ("Runaway," "Power," "All of the Lights"), and the lean, industrial future-soul of his latest album, Yeezus ("Black Skinhead," "Blood on the Leaves," "Bound 2"). Over the course of that sustained creative run—an almost unprecedented one in the world of urban music, which thrives off constant novelty—West has perhaps done more than any other hip-hop artist to bring the bold experimentation and cathartic emotional energy of rock 'n' roll to rap. Along the way, there have also been, amongst myriad other endeavors, forays into film (such as the 34-minute extended video for "Runaway" that he directed) and high-end fashion (he showed two seasons in Paris), a record label (G.O.O.D. Music), collaborations with the likes of Riccardo Tisci, Takashi Murakami, and George Condo, and a joint album with Jay-Z (2011's Watch the Throne).
You don't have to search far in West's bio for formative moments. The car accident, his mother's sudden death in 2007 following a cosmetic procedure, and the birth this past summer of his daughter, North, with girlfriend (and now fiancée) Kim Kardashian have powerfully punctuated both his life and career over the last 11 years. The influence of his parents, who split when West was a toddler, also looms large. His father, Ray West, was involved with the Black Panthers, and went on to become a photojournalist in Atlanta, where Kanye was born, and his mother was an English professor. (Kanye's decision to leave school before graduating, initially a disappointment to Donda, in part supplied the overarching motif of The College Dropout.) After his parents divorced, Donda took an academic appointment in Chicago, where Kanye spent most of his childhood and young adulthood. It's also where he first started writing and producing before moving to New York to join Jay-Z and Damon Dash's Roc-A-Fella crew.
Yeezus, West says, marks the beginning of a new period in his life as an artist, though the events of the last year—North's birth, his engagement to Kardashian—would seem to indicate that it marks the beginning of a new period in his life in general. 12 Years a Slave director Steve McQueen, in the midst of a life-changing year of his own, recently caught up by phone with the 36-year-old West in Los Angeles, where he was camped out briefly between "Yeezus" tour stops. They spoke not long after the unveiling of the oft-discussed video for "Bound 2," which was directed by Nick Knight and features West and a topless Kardashian writhing on the back of a motorcycle against a backdrop of orange-y purple-hued karaoke-video-style landscapes.
STEVE MCQUEEN: It's hard to make beauty. People often try, and more often than not, everything starts to feel sort of cheap or kitsch. But you express yourself in a way that's beautiful. You can sing from the heart and have it connect and translate, which is a huge thing for an artist to be able to do. So my first question is: How do you do that? How do you communicate in that way?
KANYE WEST: I just close my eyes and act like I'm a 3-year-old. [laughs] I try to get as close to a childlike level as possible because we were all artists back then. So you just close your eyes and think back to when you were as young as you can remember and had the least barriers to your creativity.
MCQUEEN: Let's go deep very quickly then: Talk to me about who you were and who you've become—both before and after your accident, the car crash. Who are those two people, Kanye before and Kanye after? Are they different people? Was there a seismic change in who you were after you nearly lost your life?
WEST: I think I started to approach time in a different way after the accident. Before I was more willing to give my time to people and things that I wasn't as interested in because somehow I allowed myself to be brainwashed into being forced to work with other people or on other projects that I had no interest in. So simply, the accident gave me the opportunity to do what I really wanted to do. I was a music producer, and everyone was telling me that I had no business becoming a rapper, so it gave me the opportunity to tell everyone, "Hey, I need some time to recover." But during that recovery period, I just spent all my time honing my craft and making The College Dropout. Without that period, there would have been so many phone calls and so many people putting pressure on me from every direction—so many people I somehow owed something to—and I would have never had the time to do what I wanted to.
MCQUEEN: So basically, it allowed you to focus, and you realized at a certain point that it was now or never—and that you had to do it now.
WEST: Yes. It gave me perspective on life—that it was really now or 100 percent never. I think that people don't make the most of their lives. So, you know, for me, right now it seems like it's the beginning of me rattling the cage, of making some people nervous. And people are strategically trying to do things to mute my voice in some way or make me look like I'm a lunatic or pinpoint the inaccuracies in my grammar to somehow take away from the overall message of what I'm saying ...
MCQUEEN: Well, unfortunately, that is indicative of what a lot of black performers and leaders have had to go through. People will often try to undermine them in a way to take away their power. You know, when I saw you perform, I was like, "This guy is gonna die on stage." When I saw you play, it felt like that—like it could be the last performance that you give. There's an incredible intensity to your performances.
WEST: As my grandfather would say, "Life is a performance." I'm giving all that I have in this life. I'm opening up my notebook and I'm saying everything in there out loud. A lot of people are very sacred with their ideas, and there is something to protecting yourself in that way, but there's also something to idea sharing, or being the person who makes the mistake in public so people can study that.
MCQUEEN: It can be hard to take those kinds of risks as an artist if you're thinking about tomorrow.
WEST: Well, all we have is today. You know, the past is gone, and tomorrow is not promised.
MCQUEEN: Talk to me a little bit about Yeezus. The album before that one, My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy, was a phenomenal success. Did that wear on your mind when you went in to make Yeezus?
WEST: Yeah! So I just had to throw it all in the trash. I had to not follow any of the rules because there was no way to match up to the previous album. Dark Fantasy was the first time you heard that collection of sonic paintings in that way. So I had to completely destroy the landscape and start with a new story. Dark Fantasy was the fifth installment of a collection that included the four albums before it. It's kind of the "Luke, I am your father" moment. Yeezus, though, was the beginning of me as a new kind of artist. Stepping forward with what I know about architecture, about classicism, about society, about texture, about synesthesia—the ability to see sound—and the way everything is everything and all these things combine, and then starting from scratch with Yeezus... That's one of the reasons why I didn't want to use the same formula of starting the album with a track like "Blood on the Leaves," and having that Nina Simone sample up front that would bring everyone in, using postmodern creativity where you kind of lean on something that people are familiar with and comfortable with to get their attention. I actually think the most uncomfortable sound on Yeezus is the sound that the album starts with, which is the new version of what would have been called radio static. It's the sonic version of what internet static would be—that's how I would describe that opening. It's Daft Punk sound. It was just like that moment of being in a restaurant and ripping the tablecloth out from under all the glasses. That's what "On Sight" does sonically.
MCQUEEN: So Yeezus was about throwing away what people want you to do—the so-called "success"—so you could move on to something else.
WEST: It's the only way that I can survive. The risk for me would be in not taking one—that's the only thing that's really risky for me. I live inside, and I've learned how to swim through backlash, or maintain through the current of a negative public opinion and create from that and come through it and spring forth to completely surprise everyone—to satisfy all believers and annihilate all doubters. And at this point, it's just fun.
MCQUEEN: But there must have been moments of doubt or depression or sadness. I mean, with what happened after the Taylor Swift incident [at the 2009 MTV Video Music Awards] and all the negativity that came your way as the result of that. How did you deal with it all mentally, physically, and spiritually?
WEST: It's funny that you would say "mentally, physically, spiritually" because my answer before you even said that was going to be "god, sex, and alcohol."
MCQUEEN: People can get lost in all of those things. So how did you arrive where you are now after coming through that period?
WEST: Well, I don't have an addictive personality, so that means that I can lean on what might be someone else's vice just enough to make it through to the next day. You know, just enough religion, a half-cup of alcohol with some ice in it and a nice chaser, and then ...
MCQUEEN: A lot of sex. [both laugh]
WEST: Yeah—a lot of sex. And then I'd make it to the next week.
MCQUEEN: So was there a moment when Yeezus all kind of came together as a work?
WEST: I've heard people say stuff about how a work is just taken out of your hands, and there were times ... I remember that we were shooting the "New Slaves" video before I'd even finished the second verse. We were on our third shoot day, and I was in the studio still finishing it because my lyrics aren't written beforehand. It's very important to me that they're completely in sync with what's happening in society at that time—that they're very timeless, but very up to date ...
MCQUEEN: How important is that for you, to be current?
WEST: I don't use a lot of current-affairs names—I've used them seldomly—but I feel like it's just a current itself, a wave that I'm surfing. There is no sport without the wave, so I have to wait for it. If the waves are high, then we're gonna have a fun day. If the waves are low, then you just stay on the beach.
WEST: Well, all we have is today. You know, the past is gone, and tomorrow is not promised.
MCQUEEN: Talk to me a little bit about Yeezus. The album before that one, My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy, was a phenomenal success. Did that wear on your mind when you went in to make Yeezus?
WEST: Yeah! So I just had to throw it all in the trash. I had to not follow any of the rules because there was no way to match up to the previous album. Dark Fantasy was the first time you heard that collection of sonic paintings in that way. So I had to completely destroy the landscape and start with a new story. Dark Fantasy was the fifth installment of a collection that included the four albums before it. It's kind of the "Luke, I am your father" moment. Yeezus, though, was the beginning of me as a new kind of artist. Stepping forward with what I know about architecture, about classicism, about society, about texture, about synesthesia—the ability to see sound—and the way everything is everything and all these things combine, and then starting from scratch with Yeezus... That's one of the reasons why I didn't want to use the same formula of starting the album with a track like "Blood on the Leaves," and having that Nina Simone sample up front that would bring everyone in, using postmodern creativity where you kind of lean on something that people are familiar with and comfortable with to get their attention. I actually think the most uncomfortable sound on Yeezus is the sound that the album starts with, which is the new version of what would have been called radio static. It's the sonic version of what internet static would be—that's how I would describe that opening. It's Daft Punk sound. It was just like that moment of being in a restaurant and ripping the tablecloth out from under all the glasses. That's what "On Sight" does sonically.
MCQUEEN: So Yeezus was about throwing away what people want you to do—the so-called "success"—so you could move on to something else.
WEST: It's the only way that I can survive. The risk for me would be in not taking one—that's the only thing that's really risky for me. I live inside, and I've learned how to swim through backlash, or maintain through the current of a negative public opinion and create from that and come through it and spring forth to completely surprise everyone—to satisfy all believers and annihilate all doubters. And at this point, it's just fun.
MCQUEEN: But there must have been moments of doubt or depression or sadness. I mean, with what happened after the Taylor Swift incident [at the 2009 MTV Video Music Awards] and all the negativity that came your way as the result of that. How did you deal with it all mentally, physically, and spiritually?
WEST: It's funny that you would say "mentally, physically, spiritually" because my answer before you even said that was going to be "god, sex, and alcohol."
MCQUEEN: People can get lost in all of those things. So how did you arrive where you are now after coming through that period?
WEST: Well, I don't have an addictive personality, so that means that I can lean on what might be someone else's vice just enough to make it through to the next day. You know, just enough religion, a half-cup of alcohol with some ice in it and a nice chaser, and then ...
MCQUEEN: A lot of sex. [both laugh]
WEST: Yeah—a lot of sex. And then I'd make it to the next week.
MCQUEEN: So was there a moment when Yeezus all kind of came together as a work?
WEST: I've heard people say stuff about how a work is just taken out of your hands, and there were times ... I remember that we were shooting the "New Slaves" video before I'd even finished the second verse. We were on our third shoot day, and I was in the studio still finishing it because my lyrics aren't written beforehand. It's very important to me that they're completely in sync with what's happening in society at that time—that they're very timeless, but very up to date ...
MCQUEEN: How important is that for you, to be current?
WEST: I don't use a lot of current-affairs names—I've used them seldomly—but I feel like it's just a current itself, a wave that I'm surfing. There is no sport without the wave, so I have to wait for it. If the waves are high, then we're gonna have a fun day. If the waves are low, then you just stay on the beach.
STARTED TO APPROACH TIME IN A DIFFERENT WAY AFTER THE ACCIDENT . . . IT GAVE ME PERSPECTIVE ON LIFE—THAT IT WAS REALLY NOW OR 100 PERCENT NEVER.—KANYE WESTMoreMUSIC
MCQUEEN: How do you approach the visuals?
WEST: Well, I'm a trained fine artist. I went to art school from the time I was 5 years old. I was, like, a prodigy out of Chicago. I'd been in national competitions from the age of 14. I got three scholarships to art schools—to St. Xavier, to the American Academy of Art, and to the Art Institute of Chicago—and I went to the American Academy of Art. So the joke that I've actually played on everyone is that the entire time, I've actually just been a fine artist. I just make sonic paintings, and these sonic paintings have led me to become whatever people think of when you say "Kanye West." Madonna, I think, is the greatest visual musical artist that we've ever had. If you look at her photo log, the photographers that she was able to work with throughout her career framed her in the proper way. It was the proper context. It was that visual that made sure that everything was gonna cut through in a certain way. I mean, you know as much as anyone how important the visuals are. So I like to collaborate with different masters—whether it's George Condo or Nick Knight or Takashi Murakami—on the visuals that are connected to the pieces, and just have a simple high school conversation with whoever I'm working with and bring our thoughts together, but ultimately what we do is through the lens of that collaborator, and it ends up being their final hand. You know, you can go to a bunch of people who say, "Hey, I want to make a video based off of these white-trash T-shirts." But "Bound 2" is Nick Knight's take on those white-trash T-shirts, and if I went to five other artists, they would all do it in other ways. So I think that's part of the beauty of life. It's more about the art of conversation, the companionship, the friendships, and the quality of life that you get out of working—it's about the creative process even more than the final product. I think there's something kind of depressing about a product being final, because the only time a product is really final is when you're in a casket.
MCQUEEN: I wanted to talk to you about the video for "Bound 2." As you know, my daughter is a huge fan of both yours and Kim's, and I saw that video and thought, "This is great. Okay, interesting, fantastic." And then I heard about all of this controversy that came to surround it, which I had to sort of scratch my head about. I mean, call me silly, but when I saw that video for "Bound 2," I just thought to myself, "It's just a video. It's obviously a sort of romantic video of him and his partner, and it's a bit tongue-in-cheek."
WEST: Yeah. I think all that stuff around it is just that: controversy. I think people are afraid of dreams, and that video is one of the closest things to the way that dreams look and feel, or the way joy looks and feels, with the colors. You know, I think there are rules to fashion, with the all-black everything, and rules to art, with white galleries. There are rules to how a lot of things are: the concrete jungle, stone pavement, brick walls. There are even rules to what a Brooklyn apartment looks like. But this video completely didn't respect any of those rules whatsoever. [laughs] It's a dream, and I think the controversy comes from the fact that I don't think most people are comfortable with their own dreams, so it's hard for them to be comfortable with other people's dreams. I mean, look, it took some time for us to be comfortable with a walking, talking mouse, but that became an icon. So this stuff, what I'm doing now, is the beginning of me throwing out what it means to be a rapper—you know, with the gold chain ...
MCQUEEN: To me, "Bound 2" looked like a Prince video. Aesthetically, it had that kind of feel. It wouldn't have looked out of place if it were part of Purple Rain [1984].
WEST: Well, I'd be biased to think that the community of Geminis is the most consistently in tune with what their spirit is telling them to do or why they have breath in their lungs. But I do think that creative Geminis—Tupac, Biggie, Prince, Miles Davis, all being Geminis—have, throughout history, been really in tune with those things. You know, some different friends of mine have been showing me these interviews that Tupac did and how they're very simple and to the point. I watched them, and one of the things that Tupac kept saying is that he wanted thugs to be recognized. Now Jay-Z is a multi-hundred-millionaire who came from the streets, so Tupac's mission, in a way, has been realized. But my mission is very different from Tupac's—and I'm not Tupac. But I think that when I compare myself to Steve Jobs, Walt Disney, Howard Hughes, or whoever, it's because I'm trying to give people a little bit of context to the possibilities that are in front of me, as opposed to putting me in the rap category that the Grammys has put me in. In no way do I want to be the next any one of them. But I am the first me. So I only mention those other names to try to give people a little bit of context.
WEST: Well, I'm a trained fine artist. I went to art school from the time I was 5 years old. I was, like, a prodigy out of Chicago. I'd been in national competitions from the age of 14. I got three scholarships to art schools—to St. Xavier, to the American Academy of Art, and to the Art Institute of Chicago—and I went to the American Academy of Art. So the joke that I've actually played on everyone is that the entire time, I've actually just been a fine artist. I just make sonic paintings, and these sonic paintings have led me to become whatever people think of when you say "Kanye West." Madonna, I think, is the greatest visual musical artist that we've ever had. If you look at her photo log, the photographers that she was able to work with throughout her career framed her in the proper way. It was the proper context. It was that visual that made sure that everything was gonna cut through in a certain way. I mean, you know as much as anyone how important the visuals are. So I like to collaborate with different masters—whether it's George Condo or Nick Knight or Takashi Murakami—on the visuals that are connected to the pieces, and just have a simple high school conversation with whoever I'm working with and bring our thoughts together, but ultimately what we do is through the lens of that collaborator, and it ends up being their final hand. You know, you can go to a bunch of people who say, "Hey, I want to make a video based off of these white-trash T-shirts." But "Bound 2" is Nick Knight's take on those white-trash T-shirts, and if I went to five other artists, they would all do it in other ways. So I think that's part of the beauty of life. It's more about the art of conversation, the companionship, the friendships, and the quality of life that you get out of working—it's about the creative process even more than the final product. I think there's something kind of depressing about a product being final, because the only time a product is really final is when you're in a casket.
MCQUEEN: I wanted to talk to you about the video for "Bound 2." As you know, my daughter is a huge fan of both yours and Kim's, and I saw that video and thought, "This is great. Okay, interesting, fantastic." And then I heard about all of this controversy that came to surround it, which I had to sort of scratch my head about. I mean, call me silly, but when I saw that video for "Bound 2," I just thought to myself, "It's just a video. It's obviously a sort of romantic video of him and his partner, and it's a bit tongue-in-cheek."
WEST: Yeah. I think all that stuff around it is just that: controversy. I think people are afraid of dreams, and that video is one of the closest things to the way that dreams look and feel, or the way joy looks and feels, with the colors. You know, I think there are rules to fashion, with the all-black everything, and rules to art, with white galleries. There are rules to how a lot of things are: the concrete jungle, stone pavement, brick walls. There are even rules to what a Brooklyn apartment looks like. But this video completely didn't respect any of those rules whatsoever. [laughs] It's a dream, and I think the controversy comes from the fact that I don't think most people are comfortable with their own dreams, so it's hard for them to be comfortable with other people's dreams. I mean, look, it took some time for us to be comfortable with a walking, talking mouse, but that became an icon. So this stuff, what I'm doing now, is the beginning of me throwing out what it means to be a rapper—you know, with the gold chain ...
MCQUEEN: To me, "Bound 2" looked like a Prince video. Aesthetically, it had that kind of feel. It wouldn't have looked out of place if it were part of Purple Rain [1984].
WEST: Well, I'd be biased to think that the community of Geminis is the most consistently in tune with what their spirit is telling them to do or why they have breath in their lungs. But I do think that creative Geminis—Tupac, Biggie, Prince, Miles Davis, all being Geminis—have, throughout history, been really in tune with those things. You know, some different friends of mine have been showing me these interviews that Tupac did and how they're very simple and to the point. I watched them, and one of the things that Tupac kept saying is that he wanted thugs to be recognized. Now Jay-Z is a multi-hundred-millionaire who came from the streets, so Tupac's mission, in a way, has been realized. But my mission is very different from Tupac's—and I'm not Tupac. But I think that when I compare myself to Steve Jobs, Walt Disney, Howard Hughes, or whoever, it's because I'm trying to give people a little bit of context to the possibilities that are in front of me, as opposed to putting me in the rap category that the Grammys has put me in. In no way do I want to be the next any one of them. But I am the first me. So I only mention those other names to try to give people a little bit of context.
