19 Best Quotes From Kanye West In Interview Magazine

Kanye West is back. After a series recent radio runs in promotion of his Yeezus Tour, West is keeping in his name in the media with his latest feature in Interview. The G.O.O.D. Music leader got interviewed by 12 Years A Slave director Steve McQueen, where their conversation covered a wide range of topics from the video to “Bound 2” to his highly publicized 2002 car accident. We combed through the story and pulled some great quotes from hip-hop’s most outspoken figure. Check out some quotes and read the full thing here.

Previously: Breaking Down Kanye West’s Six Platinum Solo Albums

"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."

"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."

"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."

"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."

"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 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."

"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.'"

"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."

"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.'"

"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."

"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."

"So if we take it back to the days of what the media calls 'meltdowns'—which I don't call meltdowns at all, I call them 'turn-ups'—at things like the MTV Video Music Awards ..."

"You know, the sketchbook, the train of my ideas, is named after her. It's called Donda. And it's amazing because my grandfather, who just passed away this year, was named Portwood, and he had the sensibility, as a Southern black man out of Oklahoma, to name his daughter Donda. And then Donda had the sensibility to name her son Kanye. How futuristic and worldly are both of those names?"

"Well, I've got my astronaut family. You know, becoming famous is like being catapulted into space—sometimes without a space suit."

"As a celebrity, I have an opportunity to make a living at being the spokesperson for the third or fourth rendition of a thought-promoting something that has already been proven. The problem is that I like to be the inventor—I'm the person who works on the concept, who invents new thoughts, who brings new ideas into the universe. I'm not the guy who works on selling the idea—I'm not Vanna White for the new Hyundai."

"The first company that has really given me a shot is Adidas. They did the deal ... I mean, Damon Dash did the deal, at the end of the day. He signed Kanye West 12 years ago. What does that mean now? What does that mean to music?"

"My mission is about what I want to create. It's for people, for humanity. It's about things that can make the world better. I'm not saying that I'm going to make a better world; I'm just saying that I will provide some things that will help, and my glass ceiling that I'm facing is based on my color."

"I mean, there have definitely been moments where I've forgotten that I was black—and I don't want people to take that as, "Oh, he sold out." I mean, like, when I decided to wear tight jeans. At that moment, I forgot that I was supposed to wear baggy jeans because I'm black. Or when I've said certain things on TV and I've forgotten that I wasn't supposed to say them because I'm black—that I was supposed to stay in line and be neutral."

"People can give you advice ... I met with Deepak Chopra, right? I was supposed to go back the next day, but I told my girlfriend that I wasn't going to go. Because you know what gets me calm, baby? Success. And I went in and finished my Adidas deal instead. I felt so Zen-ed out by that."

"So I hope that there are people out there laughing. Laugh loud, please. Laugh until your lungs give out because I will have the last laugh."