The undeniably talented, creative genius that is Kanye West, recently did and an interview with Zach Baron of GQ magazine. He talked about fashion, music, who attended his wedding with Kim Kardashian, happiness, and being a father to his daughter North. Take a look at the insert below via GQ.
When you said what you said last year about the fashion industry and your frustration with it, did your phone ring after that?
Kanye: It did move the needle. Only positive came from it. Maybe I’m not as good friends as I could have been with the Saint Laurent designer. And now I don’t get the red-and-black versions of the white-and-black pants that are in stores, or whatever I would have got as a musician. But other than that, that communication was real. Alexander Wang made sure that I was able to go to a Balenciaga show, and I was never allowed to do that before because I was a celebrity. Listen to what I’m saying—me, as Kanye West: I guarantee you, I’m more than 50 percent responsible for every men’s shoe that they sell. Me, the singular person. More than 50 percent responsible for every Balenciaga shoe they sell. And they would say, “You can’t come to the show, because you are a celebrity.” But all honesty, no ego, I have a level of influence, and I have a level of respect for the designers. And we move product on that Barneys floor.
How do you feel about Yeezus now, a year later?
Kanye: I think Yeezus is the beginning of a completely new era of music. It was all new rules. It just broke every rule possible. None of the ideas were popular ideas. Even “Bound 2,” when the video came out, I think people’s apprehension—I mean, it’s the same as any other Kanye West video. You just have colorful bears running around. It was completely morphed and weird and psychedelic and really druggy. I would have just liked to have had more nudity in it. That’s the only thing. I just want to do crazy, colorful shit like that that has more nudity. 
I feel like people have no idea if you’re ever actually happy, or what makes you happy.
Kanye: Well, when I work on an album, it’s fun at certain times. There’s some accomplishments, and sometimes there’s a bit of frustration. And it’s usually like a nine-month process, right? This is a multi-lifetime process that we have now embarked on. Meaning starting now, you’re just starting to see a glimmer of what the idea of West will mean. So right now, at this age and with this visibility and with the skill sets that Kim is now giving me, I think I have a good chance of success in building something that has longevity, high integrity, high success rate, and is very fulfilling, not only for me creatively but also in adding fulfillment to people’s lives. Adding ease. Adding wonder. Adding magic.
But if you read a lot of the tabloid coverage, the implication is: Kim and her family are bringing you down. Jay Z and Beyoncé didn’t show up at your wedding because of them. That kind of thing.
Kanye: All that, I wouldn’t even speak on. It doesn’t even matter to me whatsoever, who would show up. Because the most important person to show up there, to me, was Kim. And that’s all that matters to me. I had to fight for that for seven years. But the fact that these other people showed up that are from such different worlds but have done such dynamic things—they’re all, in a way, equal to what Kim has done in TV or what I had done in music. I was so moved that I just wanted people to stop and think they weren’t sitting at a table full of fashion people, they weren’t sitting at a table full of celebrities, they weren’t sitting at a table full of movie directors. It really was a representation of the way we receive information today, post-Internet. And so Page Six can’t overshadow the main point: Carine Roitfeld was sitting next to Kim Kardashian. That alone to me is like the same moment when I brought Mos Def to the studio with Jay Z. It’s about the people, and the fact that they’re from different walks of life, and that they’re working together and not discriminating against each other. There was a class system, and now there’s a creative class system, and I think that’s what you were talking about a bit—the class system of creativity.
Then they say you gave a forty-five-minute toast to yourself.
Kanye: And what I talked about in it was the idea of celebrity, and celebrities being treated like blacks were in the ’60s, having no rights, and the fact that people can slander your name. I said that in the toast. And I had to say this in a position where I, from the art world, am marrying Kim. And how we’re going to fight to raise the respect level for celebrities so that my daughter can live a more normal life. She didn’t choose to be a celebrity. But she is. So I’m going to fight to make sure she has a better life.
Are you the father you hoped you’d be? There’s that song on Watch the Throne, “New Day,” where you and Jay Z talk about your unborn children, and you basically say: “I want my kid to be completely the polar opposite of me.”
Kanye: And the joke was that I was supposed to say on the song, “Come on, Jay, you know we’re both gonna have daughters.” And I’m so mad, because you know when I pop that creative-genius shit? If I had had that, that could’ve been my one moment where I’m like: “Okay, fuck all the conversation. Look at that. I called that one.”
Tags: GQ, Kanye West
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