Kanye West. Zane Lowe. Part 1.

gra grab you remember this place yeah yeah graduation yeah wow I was also thinking about some of the other things we've done as well which um with the BBC like EBY Road sprung to mind with the strings oh yeah that was good that suit was like I would have worn something different if I could look back right now I could still do a suit I just wouldn't have done that ASA theale situation but talk about like really putting yourself on the line with that you know I mean that was you know so early on to

you'd be stepping in a room with that many players and that kind of to give yourself that objective I mean what are your thoughts when you think back about Abby Roy with the it's just nuts I thought it was good I thought it what I was supposed to do at that time you know if I see something I see opportunity I'm going to go for it yeah you know what I'm saying we only you know we're all going to die one day yeah it's true so we live like that live like you could die tomorrow

you know go for it you know that those steps of what have allow that those steps of have been the um you know the platforms that allowed me to make it this far and you have man and we're here and you know six albums original albums of of your own a thrown record various records with good music to talk about man but seriously yeus Bravo dude I mean that is one of the most creative records of you know of any genre I've heard in a very very long time and you know just in terms of

your output your most exciting sounding record I think man oh thank you very much you know yeah I feel you know I was able to start are just making exactly what was in my mind again and not having to speak with the textures of the time cuz you know Cruel Summer is definitely Kanye West and it's something kind of weird and off about Mercy like when it has the high pitch that type of sound it sounds like art still a little bit even though it's obviously was a radio smash uh but it's still when when

I you know get into the idea like the Trap drums and things like that or certain you know songs that are blatant you know radio hits it's like I'm speaking with today textures and that's you know and you look if you look at it 200 years from now it's not going to stand out in the way that you know 808s or yeesus stands out and completely can push or redefine or make people say you know hey I I completely hate that or I completely love that but let me just think differently because everybody is like

bound to these you know um no pun intended they're bound to uh 16 bars and eight bars and you know the normal uh radio uh the radio thing I was talking to Frank Ocean about this and said like you know my my mom got arrested for the stins and now we're more like the sit outs like sit off of radio and say Hey Radio come to us yeah you know we need to find something new be because it's being you know controlled in a way and and and manufactured in a way that you you know

uh really awesome you know artists you know uh can make amazing music and and that break as far past as like something that's very like formula so it almost feels like a duty to you in a weird way having the people's ear having people's attention and for great music to be able to say well if I'm not challenging them if I'm not challenging myself not challenging radio what am I doing yeah what I'm not I'm not trying to regurgitate myself I showed I showed people that I understand how to make perfect you know Dark Fantasy

could be considered to be perfect you know I say I know how to make perfect but that's not what I'm here to do I'm here to crack and crack the pavement and make new ground you know sonically and and Society culturally you've done that withus I mean it's fascinating for us to sit here and talk about this record now cuz normally when I talk to artists about records of this nature it's in the lead up to something so we're all kind of playing a guessing game you know what I mean you could tell me what

you think of the record but I'm sort of trying to find my way around it the audience probably won't have heard it in this case it's been out for a minute so we can reflect on it with the benefit of hindsight too you've seen what everyone else has had to say about this record both good and bad but I'm fascinated to know today how you would describe Jesus as someone who made it how you would describe that record you know I just think that I'm a production I'm a production person I'm a product guy I'm

a producer so um if I'm working on a John Legend album I'm GNA try to give John Legend the best you know home for him to stay in and I'm going to try to push push your t no pun intendent once again this just keeps happening to me uh to make the thing that represents what I like about his music the most and then for me as Kanye West I got to [ __ ] [ __ ] up and you did do seriously from the minute it starts I mean seriously disgusting you know so you're

you're up in the lck probably at this point and you're kicking around ideas and you're putting things together and this sound comes into your head and you're like this is what I'm looking for this is no this this is me going to the studio with Toman man and them like who's da Punk and they had a synthesizer like the sides of that wall right there and like this is just one session right here and this beat originally was like 14 minutes long and that part in the beginning was something we completely just distorted it and

like and I end up making that the intro you know I got a I got a beef with you over this track it's too short I wanted more out of it you know cuz it's one of the best beats on the record for me and you know it just feels like you're just getting warmed up was that kind of deliberate you know to pull back after only a couple of verses and go you know what we're going to get on with with the album now no that's just what I felt like it should be yeah

you just had done thing and you know like originally Blood On The Leaves was supposed to be first wow and which psychologically I know it would have changed certain Jesus naysayers about the album but it wasn't that time for me I I didn't I didn't I didn't want to come up there and perform a lot of times music can be presented as you know like a service position but I wanted to take a more aggressive approach with music you know people go on a vacation and say you got the drugs you got the music you

know you got the wine you got the you know it's like it's in that territory you know what I'm saying but I wanted to speak up and say okay so my voice is only compressed to express myself artistically through music it's the only place where I actually have a deal you know so I can only consistently make things to music so I'm going to take music and I'm going try to make it threedimensional like like like uh [Music] um on on Star Wars and the Hologram will pop up out of R2-D2 I'm going to try

to make something that jumps up and affects you in a good or bad way yeah whether it's I'm going into a scream in the middle of the track because that's just the way I feel but I'm not I'm not here to make easy listening you know Pro easy programmable music no you s off the reservation on the AL in the best possible way I mean like you talked about the way that you use your voice in different ways you know you don't you don't rely on conventional rhyming flows your flows I mean the opening line

yees season approaching you know a monsters awoken like you know you're laying it out there this isn't my you know Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy part two you know I'm whing out on this record straight away yeah and then from nowhere as well we just get treated to these wonderful moments where like you say just it's almost like a collage like you're sitting here going you know what why can't I go into this why not yeah you can you you did yeah it's true it's like a car crash you just be driving and just out of

nowhere that happens yeah you know at what point did that kind of very deliberate feel to the record whereby breaks come in and join these really discordant electronic moments and everything seems to exist in this kind of very contradictory but it works kind of way at what point did that start to take shape because it is very you know omnipresent through the record as a whole the way it flips between one and the other was that in your head early on or did that come towards the end when you started to reduce the record uh

well I didn't reduce it r reduced it he's not a producer he's a reducer uh but yeah I um was it always part of the process though for you like to say why don't I take elements of this and this and just bolt it together um yeah it's just the way I was consuming information in my life at that time you know information from you know whatever negative information or positive information from the internet uh me you know just going to the lou you know and going to Furniture exhibits and understanding that trying to open

up and do interviews with this learning more about architecture um taking 1,000 meetings attempting to get like backing to do clothing and different things like that and like getting no Headway whatsoever you know because you know and it was just that level of frustration and that's what you know this is what frustration [ __ ] sounds like this is what frustration sounds like like for me as Kanye West I would not be Kanye West if it wasn't for Michael Jackson I was with Quincy Jones a couple of days ago at John Legend's wedding Quincy was

telling me it wasn't just Mike but these guys broke down you know the barriers you know of course you know like Michael Jackson like he had to fight to get his video played because he was black this is Michael Jackson Michael Jackson's not even black he's Michael Jackson you mean like in a POS you know like saying he's so crazy like how can he even be just classified as like you know this black artist so for me you know in my life and creativity it's been challenging yeah it's been challenging and everything but I was

able to ascend to massive levels of heights and never stop right because of the foundation that my mother and my father and my grandfather laid through civil rights what Michael Jackson did with um with with music videos and the ground he broke there would be no Kanye West if it wasn't for Michaelson that allowed him to be that right yeah so now let's take like where there's you know people who have uh you know issues with me as Kanye West they say why is he they classify you know my motivational speeches as like Rants and

things like this like why is he saying that why is he doing that blah blah blah well I've reached a point in my life where my Truman Show Boat has hit the painting and I've got to a point that Michael Jackson did not break down I have reached the glass ceiling as a creative person as a celebrity when I say that it means I want to do product I am a product person not just clothing but water bottle design architecture everything you know that you could you know think about and I've been at it for

10 years and I look around I say wait a second there's no one around here in this space that looks like me and if they are they're quiet as [ __ ] so that means wait a second now we're seriously like in a civil rights movement like people used to joke about do you remember our South Park photo yeah I do remember how funny that was do you think there would be a gon in the hood if it wasn't for that South Park photo yeah but no one thinks about that no one thinks about the

names I got called for like wearing tight jeans you referenced that in the record you talk about that no one's liked him since he since You' been wearing tight jeans you know everybody knows that you you know you bought back real rap I mean you referenc that on the record you yeah but but I'm saying I had all that but I bought real rack back I I'm going to do dope things you know and I want to take this opportunity to speak to something because I I go to Hype Beast right sometimes just to look

at the new things that are coming out and everything and every time my name goes up you know there's a series of you know people who like write just negative comments they want to joke around and say why is he still trying why is he doing this why is he they like diss me you know me as a person for trying now mind you I brought 10 years of product that is added to humanity yeah you know and now what they don't realize when I say hey this is Pusher te this is what it is

I have to remind Pusher te that he's push your te because the radio if they're not playing a song of his that has a R&B hook on it or works at a certain level of trap Tempo and plays and Club live it's like we forget about that Clips album that meant everything and the reason why I related that to design and what we do in design is saying that's the music that us as creatives that wanted to get into design we looked at Clips as the gods and this is our soundtrack to creativity and it's

not a trap beat that comes in on that soundtrack to creativity you know what I'm saying it's not no knock to trap cuz you know I did can't tell me nothing I like it but it's been commercialized to the point where it's like and I'm not mentioning no names but what a when people used to use the term R&B [ __ ] right the people used to use term but then it was rappers but then rappers didn't want to be no R&B [ __ ] now the rappers is the new R&B [ __ ] the

rappers the new radio like where's the culture at yeah where where is the culture at so then I scream and I'm sitting in the middle of it whether whether I'm at a at a dinner with Anna winter or you know I'm I'm I'm at at a a listening session uh with uh Pusher or me and Virgil are in Rome giving designs to findy over and over and getting our designs knocked down brought brought the leather jogging pants six years ago to findy and they said no how many [ __ ] you done seen with a

leather jogging pant yeah okay meaning like so when I see when I see Hy slag and it's all like okay this is my take on the world yeah he got some nice $5,000 jeans in there it's some nice ones here and there some good [ __ ] here and there but we culture rap the new rock and roll we culture rap is the new rock and roll we the rock stars it's been like that now for a minute it's been like that for a minute head stain it's been like that for a minute we we

the real rock stars and I'm the biggest of all of them