Despite his superhuman ability to end up in the news, Kanye West doesn’t give many interviews. Last night, though, the New York Times published a lengthy career spanning Q&A between the rapper and writer Jon Caramanica — which is, as far as we can tell, Kanye’s first in-depth conversation with a member of the press in about five years. So why now? Because he’s about to put out his sixth studio album, “Yeezus,” which we know little about despite the fact that it’s a bona fide major (underline, italicize, and bold that “major”) release that’s due to hit stores next Tuesday. After reading the interview we still don’t know much about the record, but that doesn’t make West’s talk about being awesome, not regretting the whole Taylor Swift incident, and who he considers his peers any less riveting.
We strongly recommend reading Caramanica’s 4,586-word article in its entirety, but here are our six favorite moments of the interview’s near-limitless highlights:
On his issues with the Grammys:
I don’t know if this is statistically right, but I’m assuming I have the most Grammys of anyone my age, but I haven’t won one against a white person.… But the thing is, I don’t care about the Grammys; I just would like for the statistics to be more accurate.
On the instinct that led him to charge the stage during Taylor Swift’s MTV Awards speech:
It’s only led me to complete awesomeness at all times. It’s only led me to awesome truth and awesomeness. Beauty, truth, awesomeness. That’s all it is.
On what “My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy” really was:
“Dark Fantasy” was my long, backhanded apology. You know how people give a backhanded compliment? It was a backhanded apology. It was like, all these raps, all these sonic acrobatics. I was like: “Let me show you guys what I can do, and please accept me back. You want to have me on your shelves.”
On the “greatest inspiration” behind “Yeezus”:
Architecture — you know, this one Corbusier lamp was like, my greatest inspiration. I lived in Paris in this loft space and recorded in my living room, and it just had the worst acoustics possible, but also the songs had to be super simple, because if you turned up some complicated sound and a track with too much bass, it’s not going to work in that space. This is earlier this year. I would go to museums and just like, the Louvre would have a furniture exhibit, and I visited it like, five times, even privately. And I would go see actual Corbusier homes in real life and just talk about, you know, why did they design it? They did like, the biggest glass panes that had ever been done.
On the importance of Christmas presents:
But ultimately, this guy that was talking to me doesn’t make Christmas presents, meaning that nobody was asking for his [stuff] as a Christmas present. If you don’t make Christmas presents, meaning making something that’s so emotionally connected to people, don’t talk to me.
On the great minds he groups himself with:
I think what Kanye West is going to mean is something similar to what Steve Jobs means.... I’ve been connected to the most culturally important albums of the past four years, the most influential artists of the past ten years. You have like, Steve Jobs, Walt Disney, Henry Ford, Howard Hughes, Nicolas Ghesquière, Anna Wintour, David Stern.
And to think, we didn’t even touch on the parts about him admitting he can’t sing and saying that he’d “rather sit in a factory than sit in a Maybach.” Brash, contradictory, arrogant — those are just a few words that might come to mind when reading the article. But the word that most defines Kanye to us: compelling. No matter what you think of him, West proves time and time again that to ignore him is to miss out on something culturally important. We still have no idea how “Yeezus” will turn out, but this interview, like the rest of the of the run-up to the album’s release, has guaranteed that it’s the release we’ll pay the most attention to this summer. Actually, make that this year.