[Ed’s note: Since Kanye’s highly anticipated third album, Graduation, is coming out next week on the 11th, Encore will bring you a couple of interesting features on this ground-breaking artist, producer and respected tastemaker. I hollered at my peoples at Complex magazine and they laced me up with an interview with Kanye West that is published in their August/September issue, on which `Ye himself served as Guest Editor. The interview was done by the head honcho of Complex Magazine, Marc Ecko (Yeah, that Marc from Ecko Unltd!!); it is intrepid, hilarious, revealing and I’m sure you guys will enjoy it.]
Here it goes…….
I’m not trying to be overly poetic, but there’s something about Kanye West that puts him on a different plane than almost everyone else making contemporary music. In a day and age where culture and politics are constantly shifting, there remains an immovable truth about him. That is to say, there’s something really sincere about his effort, despite—or perhaps because of—the paradoxes that he’s bundled up in. He blurs the lines between aesthetic and content, confidence and insecurity, and the whole time you never really know if it’s planned or if it was effortless. And at the end of the day it doesn’t matter; the fact that you even question it is testament to the deftness of his skill.
As Kanye enters his thirties and releases his third full-length album, Graduation, his place next to all the great musicians of our time becomes more and more certain. His throwback ethos (without relying on the crutch of nostalgia) and attention to detail make him arguably the most meticulous musician active today.
Combine that with his laborious attention to style and you can see that he’s nothing less than a modern (or perhaps post-modern) performance artist. I got a chance to sit down and discuss all of the above with the man of the hour, to get his take on the finer things in life: culture, politics, and, well, porn. Enjoy.
Marc Ecko: So, this is the first time I’ve ever interviewed anyone. I’m a little nervous. I’ve had some whiskey.
Kanye West: OK, great. [Laughs.] I’m honored.
M: I was curious, who was more of an influence on your style, your father or your grandfather?
K: Definitely my grandfather on my mother’s side. He was just sharp like that.
M: Do you think you’re nostalgic for that look, generationally? Was he more dapper?
K: Well, yeah, he was dapper—I don’t want to diss my dad’s style, but my dad would wear some JCPenney’s khakis and stuff. He wasn’t really into style like that. I remember one summer, when high-top fades was out, I was like 13 years old, and he told me, “OK, you can get your hair cut once a month.” Which means that an Afro would start growing on the side of my head, so I had like a high-top fade and a high-top side.
M: [Laughs.]
K: And I remember I started crying, and he was like, “Yo, why you crying? I didn’t know your hair meant that much to you.”
M: When you were growing up in Chicago in those early adolescent years, who’d you look to as an aesthetic role model?
K: Well, I always was really into clothes and stuff like that. And they used to have a store called Merry-Go-Round in the mall and it was that store I wanted to go to and just stare at stuff. It was all that In Living Color–era stuff with the baggy Hammer slacks and the—
M: You were rocking Hammer slacks?
K: Yeah, I actually wore some Hammer slacks.
M: See, I had you for polka dots…
K: Oh yeah, I had both. So, uh, not my finest moment. But, I wore that to school—and this is back in grammar school. It’s like people wore that in videos, but people would never actually really wear that in real life. And that’s when I figured out that I didn’t really dress how people dressed in “real life.” I was like on TV before I was on TV.
M: When you visit family, do you dress more modestly?
K: People say you’re supposed to dress for the occasion. What I always say is dress like you’re coming from somewhere and you got someplace to go. You’ll probably be a little bit more yourself. That’s the attitude I had walking into Bassline studios in Italian shoes. I wasn’t dressing like I was supposed to stay in Bassline, you know what I’m sayin’?
M: Talk to me about your clothing line, Pastelle. We’ve had countless conversations about it, you’ve talked about your aspiration to get in this industry and be taken seriously. What’s going on with Pastelle today, why is it taking so long?
K: Just getting the right designs. It’s a gift and a curse. You’ve got all eyes on you, so if you deliver something great, it’s gonna get held as, “Oh, it’s supposed to be great.” And even if it’s good or it’s OK or something, it’s gonna get bashed. There were phases where I could just do the bear on a Polo and it would’ve made $100 million. At a certain point. But I always say I was a designer before I was a rapper, and I really wanted to get into design. So then, trying to start designing and goin’ with my girl down to the fashion
district and stuff, and looking at fabrics and stuff like that, I’m like, “Oh, shit. This is real.” I’ve learned so much about materials and
fabrics and applications and sequence and shiny fabrics and fits and all type of shit.
M: So when are you gonna do it? You didn’t answer my question.
K: Yeah, we’ll have stuff in stores by November.
M: OK, good for you.
K: You and I both know that I’ve had deals on the table. I was gonna put something in someone’s hands, but just with my music, with my videos, and anything I do, that’s like jail, for someone else to be able to push the button on you. Nothing beats the freedom of saying, “No, I don’t want to do that. Yes, I do want to do this.”
M: What in your life made you such a fucking micromanager? I’m not dissing you for that. I mean, Stanley Kubrick was a micromanager. But for sure, it’s a golden handcuffs for you. Is it from a position of fear? Is it a position of confidence? Where is it coming from?
K: Yeah, that’s a stumper. I don’t know where, what exactly made me…well, my father was very much like that. I don’t want to use the word “anal,” but that’s what you have to be. Like, micromanager is a very nice way to say anal-retentive. Any project that he started doing, he would get so focused on it.
M: Would it drive you crazy? Did it affect your relationship?
K: Well, no, because I was a little kid and all I could do was learn from it. So I got a lot of that focus from my dad, and the aspiration to be an entrepreneur or do something creative, do
something that his neighbor wasn’t doing.
M: Our entire lives, white folks have copied black trends, from fashion to music. And now we’re in this moment where it seems like things have flipped, with black kids dressing like hipsters and bikers. What happened and where is it going?
K: Style just keeps changing, and that’s what it is right now. What is the true take on hipster? Why do hipsters like the most gangsterest of the gangster rap music? What is the reason behind that? I think it’s a little racist. But it’s equally as racist as why we like the movie White Chicks.
M: Speaking of white chicks, what is it with you and porn? Page Six had it that you had some bag with interracial porn. Is black-on-blond really the thing? And why don’t you just get down like me and just order it in a hotel?
K: Because you can’t, um—
M: Just for the record, all of my porno is all straight black.
K: OK, and it should be, I mix it up. [Laughs.]
M: [Laughs.]
K: Straight black.
M: Like Big Booty 3.
K: Because that’s what you need. You need a little ignorance on the porn—
M: What’s up, why were you carrying these videos? You’re a superstar, just fuckin’ $19.99 that shit at the hotel on Pay-Per-View.
K: Because you can’t fast-forward, you can’t have it when you want it and shit like that.
M: Put it on your laptop. Have your intern make a Quicktime file. That’s what I do. And I have it deep within some really dark folder on the computer that my wife would never find. You know, like, “pp444322,” deep within Photoshop.
K: Yeah, I do that, too. But I appreciate the experience of going to purchase it.
M: When you lost your virginity, was there music playing in the room? Or on the Ferris wheel or wherever you lost your virginity?
K: It was in my room and I make music in my room, but—
M: That might explain your micromanagement. Did you lose your virginity listening to your own beats? [Laughs.]
K: Nah, nah, I didn’t.
M: You don’t remember what song was playing?
K: Nah, it wasn’t really about a song, it was about this great set of titties.
M: Man, I had those, too. But I also had Stevie B. [Laughs.] I’m Jersey, man. I can’t help myself.
K: These titties were some of the best I’ve ever seen because her areolas were so wide. [Laughs.]
M: [Laughs.] I like when the areolas are real contrasty. I like when there’s contrast.
K: Nah, see, I’m the opposite. I’m a little more tonal.
M: You want them tone-on-tone?
K: Yeah.
M: Let me ask you something: Why do you think I’m a hater? I get the vibe that you think I’m a hater. Just a cynical, shit-talking—
K: Oh, a pessimist. Yeah, a pessimist and a hater are different because haters are usually like the underdogs. But you’re overdog, so how can you be a hater?
M: You must have done really good on your fuckin’ English SATs.
K: Yeah, I love semantics.
M: Oh, me too. I love words.
K: I love lamp [Editor’s note: word to Anchorman]]. Some people are optimists and some people are pessimists. I have a pessimist with me all the time: “I keep it real. Niggas don’t like that.”
M: Somebody to call shit on you, right?
K: Yeah.
M: You need that. A lot of people don’t realize that in order to be successful, you need someone to break down that wall and call shit on you.
K: Yeah. That’s what’s so dope about the blogs.
M: What one thing or person is the definitive muse in your life, that if it just evaporated it’d be a wrap for you as an artist?
K: Well, I wouldn’t say it’d be a wrap, but it would definitely change—living with my girl was always one of my muses.
M: You’ve been with her a long time, yeah?
K: I guess it’s about to be six years.
M: Time to get married—that’s a good cooking time, you need time to bake. Do you pick your nose in front of her?
K: I pick my nose in front of everybody.
M: Do you fart in front of her?
K: Nah, I don’t try to fart in front of anybody.
M: Oh, dog, when you get married it’s gonna all change! Anyhow, what’s the last time you heard a record that made you jealous?
K: I know this statement might come off awkward or whatever, people won’t get the exact
translation right, but when I saw the Eve video [for “Tambourine”], it made me want to go back and do more shots [on my video] from a style level. She had the Christopher Kane dress, the vintage Chanel glasses. When I saw her style level in that, it made me say, “Damn, I need to step my style level up.” Because it’s not a matter of just guys’ style and girls’ style or black style and white style, it’s a matter of who is the style god period and shit.
M: Right now, in this moment, it seems so about the aesthetic. Which is king, content or aesthetic?
K: Well, you focus on the music first. That’s one of the reasons why it took me fuckin’ four months to finish the lyrics on “Stronger,” because the beat was just crazy and I hadn’t had people react to an instrumental like that since “Jesus Walks.” So then it’s like, “OK, we got this song that’s incredible. How do we match up a visual that could be on the same level and have all the layers that the song had?” I love that challenge: How do you become fuckin’ Disney and Shrek and Anchorman, those things that across the board are commercially successful—you know what I’m sayin’.
M: Yeah. Both of us have had degrees of crossover success. But we started with kind of a pure, inherent love for some very private club, this hip-hop thing. How do you gauge your music’s ability to cross over?
K: If you’re driving a car and you’re trying to get to another lane, you’re looking for your
opportunity to get in this lane, right? My goal is to be on the freeway in a fucking plane. In all lanes at all times. The goal is not to cross over, the goal is to try to do the impossible. Like, for me to have a party at the Louis Vuitton store and then to get into the car and hear Kay Slay playing “Can’t Tell Me Nothing” was the greatest accomplishment for me. That was like the airplane thing. You’re in all lanes.
M: Louis Vuitton again. How much of that is aspiration, the pursuit of upper-crustedness?
K: Life is about “thank you, you’re welcome.” A lot of people would say, “Louis Vuitton should’ve gave you this or that.” But I branded myself with Louis Vuitton by being this guy who does wear Louis Vuitton. It helped bring me to a status where I can wear stuff like Comme des Garçons, which the ’hood doesn’t know about like that.
M: You talked about reading the blogs and seeing hate out there on the Internet. 50 Cent on the Clinton Sparks Sirius show and Beanie Sigel on the latest Beef DVD—both guys who you’ve made beats for—are criticizing your style and essentially trying to say you’re gay. But you never respond.
K: I never put anybody down to big myself up. I just big myself up. The one time where they could say I dissed somebody is the George Bush thing. But I didn’t say, “Hey, George Bush is a bitch.” I said, “George Bush doesn’t care about black people,” something that came out of an emotion I felt. It wasn’t something I would’ve said just to be bringin’ someone down. Yeah, if I’m in the privacy of my own home, or around my friends, I’ll talk shit about whoever. But I know the power I have; I would never do or say anything to take money out of someone’s mouth.
M: [Laughs.] Are you becoming a kinder, gentler Kanye?
K: I’m just trying to control my power.
M: That’s a good thing, man. That’s a good thing
Interview courtesy Complex Magazine
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