Det var en noget anden Kanye end for halvandet år siden, der i går (igen) lod sig interviewe af BBC’s Zane Lowe. Her var ikke noget i stil med »I’m the number one rockstar on the planet«, men når Kanye taler er der som altid masser af gode citater at hente – selv om han i den grad har fundet mere fodfæste. Vi har samlet de bedste linjer her: Om Obama, Grammys, Drake og hvor hårdt der bliver arbejdet på, at North West snart får en bror eller søster.
»Oh, I’m practicing really hard. I try as many times a day as I can. Nori this one is for you! You need a sibling!«
Nori er Kanyes kælenavn for lille North West, og der skal altså ikke herske nogen tvivl om, at han og hustru Kim arbejder på, at datteren ikke skal være enebarn…
Læs flere gode citater på de følgende sider.
»I was like the 40 year old virgin of dealing with like corporations and stuff you know. I did not know how to communicate at all. And it’s like I had my point, my message was, you know, simply like: ‘your egg, my semen, we change the world’. You know, and I imagine that that’s gonna sound wrong«.
Kanye er i øjeblikket i stald hos Adidas, men han har ikke altid haft nemt ved at pitche sine ideer til de store, multinationale selskaber. Her bruger han både en noget hulemandsagtig metafor samt en henvisning til filmen ‘The 40 Year Old Virgin’ for at beskrive sin egen, tidligere inkompetence.
»And the Grammy’s are definitely like an ex-girlfriend. Soon as you get in a car with them, you wanna go right back home«.
Kanye var ikke glad for Grammy-uddelingens vurdering af ‘kunst’, og denne her sidestilling til det at troppe op til showet er ren guld.
»But the main thing is that fact that he’s delivering you know a level of product – as I said last interview, I’m a product guy – and he’s delivering a level of product to humanity that is of high quality. It works. 80 percent of the time it works all the time!«
Forholdet mellem Kanye og Drake har altid været lidt mystisk. Er de venner? Er der beef? Flere ting tyder på, at de to nu er relativt tætte, og Kanye brugte da også en del af interviewet på at rose Drake. Selvfølgelig på sin egen måde.
»And be able to be involved with writing a song like that, it’s just like way next to, like meeting Paul McCartney is like meeting Ralph Lauren. It’s like ‘whoa’. The greatest of their field, period. Of all time«.
Kanye er også en designmand, en modemand. Det kan efterhånden ikke misforstås, og det er sjovt, hvordan det at møde Paul McCartney er ‘ligesom at møde Ralph Lauren’ – og ikke den anden vej rundt. Lyder det fra Soundvenues musikredaktion, naturligvis.
»This is what I fought for. None of this was about me having like a bigger house, a faster Lamborghini. It, like, it wasn’t about that. It was about these kids having a moment. To be themselves. To be a stronger version, you know, of themselves. I make this stuff to empower people«.
Kanyes ego har stået for skud i mange, mange år. Men det virker til, at han er kommet mere ned på jorden. Men måske det har været hans vision hele tiden – han har bare været mindre heldig i sin formidling? Det handler i hvert fald ikke længere om Kanye længere, når snakken falder på hans kollektion for Adidas, men om børnene.
»Fusion is the future. Period. The mixing of ideas, the mixing of, know the two lunch tables working together, you know. Humanity period man, we’re one people and maybe that’s like incorrect English – I’m sorry mom«.
Det er fantastisk, hvordan Kanye – selvkritisk som altid – kan finde på at rette på sit eget engelske midt i en sætning om, hvordan det handler om at forene hele menneskeden.
»Or as I told Obama last time I saw him: ‘Hey, I would suggest that you sit with Elon Musk’. I would suggest that both you guys go to China. I would suggest this. I think it may happen«.
Kanye har efterhånden forbindelserne i orden – og han kan finde ud af at bruge dem. Han diskuterer ‘fremtiden’ med multimilliardær, opfinder, entreprenør m.m., Elon Musk, og foreslår i forlængelse bare lige til Barack Obama, at de to da burde mødes.
»You know I wanna perform ‘Only One’ as many times as possible. You know i could be vilified or misunderstood, and like I said I didn’t come here to be liked I came here to make a difference. Not particularly this interview, I’m talking just life«.
Som James Gordon (Gary Oldman) siger i ‘Batman: The Dark Knight’: »He’s the hero Gotham deserves, but not the one it needs right now«.
»And I want to apologize to everyone right now because I believe that Season 1 may still be in that upper price point«.
En decideret undskyldning fra Kanye, fordi han mener, at hans første kollektion for Adidas kommer til at blive lidt for dyr. Det er da noget, der er til at forstå.
»But I believe that the world can only be saved through design. And I think that the fashion world has… and when I say through design, I know it’s some snarky classist editor that’s gonna take that and say ‘Kanye West said that the world will be saved with a couture dress’. That’s not what I’m saying. The mentality behind design, you know art is to be free. Design is to fix«.
En fantastisk ting med ‘den nye Kanye’ er, at han er blevet (endnu) mere bevidst om, hvor ofte han bliver misforstået. Og hvor meget nogle journalister gerne vil misforstå ham. Her er et perfekt modsvar.
»And I couldn’t have been happier. To go and shoot this video with two of the hottest rappers in the game. Well, let’s be respectful and truthful. The hottest rapper and one of the hottest rappers in the game. And I fall somewhere in that, you know? In that, that field. So«.
Lidt mere Drake-kærlighed fra Kanye. Her taler han om optagelserne til Big Seans ‘Blessings’, hvor han – ja, better believe! – får omtalt Drizzy som den hotteste rapper i spillet lige nu. Med mindre han rent faktisk mener Big Sean…
»It is the glass shattering of the class system, which is the new racism. Class is the new way to discriminate against people, to hold people down, to hold people in a place based on where their kids go to school, how much money they make, what they drive, where they live and what type of clothes they have and how much, you know, how much they have in their account for their retirement. To somehow say that this person right here means more than this person. Like I know I tweeted ‘Black Lives Matter’ but all lives matter«.
Vi slutter i den seriøse ende med Kanyes syn på nutidens racisme: Klassesystemet. Alle mennesker i verden betyder lige meget.
Læs også: Video: Kanye bryder ud i gråd i stort Zane Lowe-interview