Speaker 1: Yeah, it's good. How are you, my brother, I'm good, Yes, sir.
Speaker 1: They've seen a lot of pictures of you lately out
Speaker 1: and about, you know, so that to the first question
Speaker 1: is how are you. I'm feeling good because the last
Speaker 1: time I think people have heard about you in the
Speaker 1: news was Kanye West was having a mental breakdown. So mentally,
Speaker 1: where are you? I think I'm in a stronger place
Speaker 1: than iver than I ever was after the breakdown, or
Speaker 1: I like to say the breakthrough. What do you? What
Speaker 1: do you? What do you think caused the mental breakdown? Fear, stress, control,
Speaker 1: being controlled, manipulation, like being a pawn and a chess
Speaker 1: piece of life, stressing things that that create, like valid
Speaker 1: dation that I didn't need to uh worry about as
Speaker 1: much and you know that. Just this is the concept
Speaker 1: of competition and being in competition with so many you know,
Speaker 1: elements at one time on a race against time, your age,
Speaker 1: Oh yo, you're getting old. Race against popularity on the radio.
Speaker 1: Klik got this song, Drake got this song on race
Speaker 1: playing the death Saint Polo ain't playing. I could do that, man,
Speaker 1: take the whole I could take the whole interview talking
Speaker 1: about Yeah, it's interesting because you never you've been the
Speaker 1: guy that has always created the flow, not gone with
Speaker 1: the flow. So it seems like you were a little
Speaker 1: upset that you weren't a part of the flow. It
Speaker 1: was weird. I was looking at you know, we're doing
Speaker 1: SAT poplo and the cultural impact is incredible, but I'm
Speaker 1: looking for other forms of validation when it's other frequencies
Speaker 1: and other currencies. So just because it's not playing on
Speaker 1: the radio. Of course, we had you know, father stretches
Speaker 1: in the club and on the radio a bit like
Speaker 1: it went to number one, but you know, to put
Speaker 1: that same amount, if not more work into a piece
Speaker 1: of work, and then you used to it coming out
Speaker 1: like graduation where everything is everywhere. You know, it's frustrating,
Speaker 1: and really ever since the Taylor Swift moment, it just
Speaker 1: had never had never been the same, the connection with radio.
Speaker 1: It's like whatever powers that be, it was much harder
Speaker 1: after that. And then also you know La leaving Universal,
Speaker 1: like you know, he had that radio locked. So if
Speaker 1: you're an artist and you signed to a major label,
Speaker 1: you want to be on the radio, espasically, if you
Speaker 1: if you popular, if you popping, you know, if you
Speaker 1: want the most famous people and planning and people love
Speaker 1: your music and all the best artists in the world
Speaker 1: are coming to your concert and all friends is like,
Speaker 1: you know, snapchat themselves at the shows and you're selling
Speaker 1: merch out like that. It seems like, okay, radio should
Speaker 1: just be intacted. It might be just a piece of
Speaker 1: information that I was missing that wasn't being expressed to
Speaker 1: me that I didn't understand because at the end of
Speaker 1: the day, someone's controlling it and I didn't. I didn't
Speaker 1: understand it. But the radio con the radio element was
Speaker 1: just one of the factors. There's like, uh, you know,
Speaker 1: the situation with my wife in Paris, and all of
Speaker 1: the elements of like you feeling like, you know, helpless,
Speaker 1: you feeling like what can you do? A thousand you know,
Speaker 1: I had like went to Paris on that trip to
Speaker 1: protect her, but not protect her, you know, physically, but
Speaker 1: to go and just help her with her looks because
Speaker 1: she's in Paris. So I'm like, let me put my
Speaker 1: eye on it personally while she's out in Paris, to
Speaker 1: make sure she busts these nigga's ass blah blah. You know,
Speaker 1: just so so like get fly and one of the
Speaker 1: things that she said that she heard is that they
Speaker 1: were coming to robber and they had to wait till
Speaker 1: I had I had left and when I finally and
Speaker 1: that the people have been strategizing and scheming on that
Speaker 1: for a long time. So when she probably got to
Speaker 1: Paris by herself, they were like, okay, this is our chance. Next,
Speaker 1: you know, I get off on the flight the next
Speaker 1: day and they were like, oh okay, we got to
Speaker 1: like fall back. And then, you know, when I left.
Speaker 1: A couple of days later, I'm on stage and I
Speaker 1: hear that my boys. KaiA comes up to me and says,
Speaker 1: you know, your wife was robbed, and I at that
Speaker 1: point I didn't know the whole element of the host
Speaker 1: story of what was happening previous to that. You know,
Speaker 1: just one week before that or two weeks before that,
Speaker 1: I had done a fashion show and I was forty
Speaker 1: five minutes late and they Lebron to me bro like
Speaker 1: men when Lebron went to like when Lebron went to
Speaker 1: Miami and they just killed him and like burned his
Speaker 1: like jersey and all that. It's like I just down
Speaker 1: the MSG young thug on stage, you know, and then
Speaker 1: go and plug in an iPhone with sixteen thousand people,
Speaker 1: everybody in the audience, whoever you want to name and shit,
Speaker 1: you know, stream and live all this like a breakthrough.
Speaker 1: And as soon as I was forty five minutes late,
Speaker 1: I felt it was the fashion community getting the right
Speaker 1: to say nigger without saying it, to be like, Yo,
Speaker 1: we know you come through stepping on next and all
Speaker 1: that and what you do in your approach of things
Speaker 1: and stuff, but if you get out of line, boy,
Speaker 1: we're gonna roast you. And it affected me because I'm
Speaker 1: an artist, and it affected me emote like, emotionally. It's
Speaker 1: like all these things were like almost set up to
Speaker 1: put me on mats, to break me down. The robbery,
Speaker 1: like I don't you know, I don't know where that
Speaker 1: you know, where that came from? The you know, was
Speaker 1: that a bigger plan, a bigger setup? You know. Also,
Speaker 1: just be on stage four times a night, I mean
Speaker 1: four times a week, you know, you get exhausted up there.
Speaker 1: So he was mentally exhausted, emotionally exhausted, physically exhausted everything. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: did you go to therapy at all? Because I feel
Speaker 1: like this is a lot to unpack, and I'm sure
Speaker 1: you're to go to guy for a lot of people,
Speaker 1: so it's like, who did the go to guy go to?
Speaker 1: So I'm sure you had to go to some therapist. Nah.
Speaker 1: I used the world as my therapy, as my therapist,
Speaker 1: anyone I talked to is my therapist. I would pull
Speaker 1: them into the conversation when I'm feeling at that point
Speaker 1: and get their perspective. Sometimes they'd be like, damn, I'm
Speaker 1: talking to Yay, I'm not expecting to talk about this.
Speaker 1: I'll use you know, I'll talk through things anybody that
Speaker 1: I'm around. And I put that as advice to people.
Speaker 1: It's like, use people around you as your therapists because
Speaker 1: they probably know more about you, like a therapists, like
Speaker 1: does a crash course in NA And then it comes
Speaker 1: it's like want to give you, you know, some advice.
Speaker 1: And I'm not saying that the therapists are bad. I'm
Speaker 1: just saying that I like just talking to acquaintance, friends, family,
Speaker 1: and you know, I'll keep them on the phone, you know,
Speaker 1: for forty five minutes at a time talking through things.
Speaker 1: It's like it's kind of narcissistic, you know, uh, talk
Speaker 1: about my problems using the energy even like just then
Speaker 1: being a sounding board and talking through it so well
Speaker 1: when when when it comes to you know, I guess
Speaker 1: mental healthhold to speak. You seem to be in a
Speaker 1: good space mentally, so how did how did you get there?
Speaker 1: You just talk through it with people or wasn't music
Speaker 1: we set earning the Twitter now? Just getting these thoughts
Speaker 1: out therapeutic for you. Yeah, but I'm not even the
Speaker 1: thoughts that I'm getting down on Twitter right now and
Speaker 1: that you know, I think everything is therapeutic, but I'm
Speaker 1: not doing it as a you know, a form of
Speaker 1: personal therapy. It's just an innate feeling. I just I
Speaker 1: want to express. I decided to use this platform to
Speaker 1: express some breakthroughs that I've had since going to the hospital.
Speaker 1: What are some of those breakthroughs? You know, you said
Speaker 1: something about the fashion world and how you felt like
Speaker 1: when you was forty five minutes late, they tried to
Speaker 1: cut your head off. It's kind of the same thing
Speaker 1: with Taylor Swift when you got on stage and you know,
Speaker 1: interrupted her acceptance. It's like, do you feel like whenever
Speaker 1: you're in spaces where you're tolerated as opposed to celebrate it,
Speaker 1: they let they remind you of that. Oh yeah, you
Speaker 1: get reminded all the time, but the reminders don't mean
Speaker 1: nothing to me anymore because I've broken it. You know,
Speaker 1: this is this is an erma's level existence at this point.
Speaker 1: You know, like you look at a birkin bag, the
Speaker 1: way it's made, the more scratches on it, the more
Speaker 1: the more value it has. You know. So all those things,
Speaker 1: those pieces of the story have created who I am today.
Speaker 1: And I wouldn't turn down anything like I always I
Speaker 1: would be thinking about you as I was recovering, and
Speaker 1: I always thought I'm gonna go and talk to Charlotmagne first,
Speaker 1: And I just wanted to say, like there was elements
Speaker 1: about going to the hospital and having a breakdown or
Speaker 1: breakthrough that was fire. It was incredible, the feeling, it
Speaker 1: was incredible, you know. Well, on the song St. Pablo,
Speaker 1: I said, I'm praying an outer body experience what happens,
Speaker 1: so people could see my light and know it's not
Speaker 1: just rapping. You have the context of rap um. Here
Speaker 1: here go one related I want to talk about rap picko.
Speaker 1: One related to what I was saying about the fashion show.
Speaker 1: So if my name pops up in a publication, uh,
Speaker 1: and you know today I don't want to use white
Speaker 1: black black man show all too much of that. I
Speaker 1: want to modernize, but I want to speak about the
Speaker 1: concept of racism is something that is something we're in,
Speaker 1: is something of the past, it's something we'll break in
Speaker 1: the future. So i'd say this. You know, if it's
Speaker 1: a white publication, if they use the word rapper, they're
Speaker 1: not saying that in a complimentary way. They're trying to
Speaker 1: say that to not classified in a Howard Hughes picassos.
Speaker 1: You know, I just way, yeah, artists or just person
Speaker 1: or something, just who I am, whatever, say say my
Speaker 1: name and whatever, Just say my first name, say half
Speaker 1: of my first name, just say yeah, whatever and whatever
Speaker 1: someone takes from that, then cool, and then say what happened.
Speaker 1: Let's just leave it there, don't put no extra sauce
Speaker 1: on it. So when they put the rapper and then
Speaker 1: they'll say something, I'll say that's like absolutely inspired. But
Speaker 1: if they put it in the something inspired in the
Speaker 1: wrong context will come off as I don't want to
Speaker 1: say crazy because I also want to change the stigma
Speaker 1: or crazy, and I want to change the stigma of
Speaker 1: mental health period And I have not done no extra
Speaker 1: study on it. We at the beginning of it, at
Speaker 1: the beginning of the conversation. But let's believe I'm gonna
Speaker 1: take the stigma off the word crazy. But let's just
Speaker 1: say for now, people will take something that's enlightened, put
Speaker 1: it in a different contexts, and then call it crazy
Speaker 1: to try to diminish the impact and the value of
Speaker 1: what I'm actually saying. Yeah, I mean, that's that's why
Speaker 1: I say I go to therapy every Friday at three
Speaker 1: o'clock because you know, sometimes you feel like rad Finki
Speaker 1: and the Lion King. Remember r Finki knew exactly what
Speaker 1: Simbol came from. You knew exactly who Simbol was and
Speaker 1: what Simbol was about what everybody would say, Yo, ro
Speaker 1: Fiki is crazy. Stayed away from him, and when nay
Speaker 1: ro Finki took that staff and hit Simbol over here
Speaker 1: and say, no, you're crazy because you don't even know
Speaker 1: who you are. Looking this is lake and let me
Speaker 1: show you where you come from. I think you might
Speaker 1: have forgotten that your Kanye was because so many people
Speaker 1: was trying to read, trying to make you believe that
Speaker 1: you were lesser than who you truly are. Oh yeah,
Speaker 1: if you hang around people who act like you aren't
Speaker 1: who you are, then you'll forget who you are. And
Speaker 1: I got a doper way. I've written it down and
Speaker 1: that was a way. Yeah, tweet, you know we should
Speaker 1: just tweet. Just tweet that right now? Speaking of Twitter, Yeah,
Speaker 1: you know, how does that feel coming back to Twitter?
Speaker 1: Because I would think I was coming back to Twitter
Speaker 1: because I would think that the hardest thing for Kanye
Speaker 1: was is to be quiet. Yeah, he was quiet for
Speaker 1: like a year. I didn't have a lot to say.
Speaker 1: I had a lot to learn. And you know, right
Speaker 1: now you'll document where I'm at. This is I felt
Speaker 1: the need to speak at this point. You know, when
Speaker 1: you when you look up at five years from now
Speaker 1: or ten years from now, there'll be I'll be even
Speaker 1: more I'll have more experience, I'll be in a I'll
Speaker 1: be in a better place than I was today. But
Speaker 1: it's good for you to see, Yea. You know, there'll
Speaker 1: be mistakes, there'll be flaws and the way I communicate
Speaker 1: today because where human beings are flawed. I'm not media trained,
Speaker 1: I'm not studied in that. I'm not trying to save
Speaker 1: the right thing. I'm just saying exactly what I feel
Speaker 1: out of out of love. When was the last time
Speaker 1: Kanye westfold like he had something to learn? Because that's
Speaker 1: interesting here, you say, because you know, Kanye is the
Speaker 1: guy who seems to know everything, like to know what's
Speaker 1: going on as far as music fashion, Like, when's the
Speaker 1: last time Kanye felt like he has something to learn?
Speaker 1: Every day? Every day I'm trying to learn something, and
Speaker 1: every day I get you know, I get afraid. I'm
Speaker 1: I'm fearful of things and I just use bravery to overcome.
Speaker 1: But I'm fearful of I mean the quote, it's the
Speaker 1: quote people always say, the wise man knows he knows nothing. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I'm learning and now I'm expressing some things that I
Speaker 1: felt And if they mean something to you at this time,
Speaker 1: then great. If not, then you know, don't don't use them.
Speaker 1: So you know a lot of um you know, I
Speaker 1: think me and um Jay's issue, my my issue. It
Speaker 1: just came down to information. I'm super hungry for information.
Speaker 1: I'm I need information more than I need validation, more
Speaker 1: than I need finance. I need like if I learned
Speaker 1: how to fish, then I can feed my family forever.
Speaker 1: So I'm just constantly looking for the information. Information. How
Speaker 1: do I set up a factory? So you feel like
Speaker 1: Jay was tossing you money as opposed to give you
Speaker 1: the information. You know, the infamous line on four four
Speaker 1: four is, you know, I gave Kanye twenty meal without
Speaker 1: thinking he gave me twenty minutes on stage. You know
Speaker 1: what was he thinking? Oh? I think it was twenty
Speaker 1: meal without banking. Whatever it was, he gave me twenty
Speaker 1: million dollars. That concept that you gave me, that he
Speaker 1: gave me the money, that's what frustrated me, because actually
Speaker 1: the money was he got it from my nation. He
Speaker 1: rack Nations managed me at the time. That's something normal
Speaker 1: that someone gives someone a touring deal. It was a
Speaker 1: touring deal. But the fact that it was worded that
Speaker 1: it came from him. I'm a very loyal, emotional like
Speaker 1: artist person. You know, that made me feel like I
Speaker 1: owed more than just the money itself. For the fact
Speaker 1: that it came from him, you know, it just put
Speaker 1: me under a bit more of a kind of controlled situation.
Speaker 1: It's like, and I don't I'm only acting out of love.
Speaker 1: I don't need to be controlled. I just need to
Speaker 1: be inspired and informed and I can be the best
Speaker 1: Ya in that way. But if I have to, I
Speaker 1: gave you this on it and I don't have the
Speaker 1: full information of how it happened. Now that said, I
Speaker 1: think there was some love in that because on Jay's part,
Speaker 1: because he did have to co sign for it when
Speaker 1: the Live Nations and these different companies wouldn't co sign
Speaker 1: for me and I was in debt. Jay did have
Speaker 1: to go up and say I'm a co sign for ya.
Speaker 1: So the thing is, it's it's one of those ones
Speaker 1: that have you ever done something where you did something
Speaker 1: for someone that's positive, but it was something about the
Speaker 1: way you did it that kind of like blew the
Speaker 1: whole thing up. So Jay did something that was positive,
Speaker 1: but the fact that I didn't receive the information in
Speaker 1: the right way, I you know, because I always feel like, man,
Speaker 1: I'm not hearing Hollywood, I'm not here, like my mom's past,
Speaker 1: I don't know who I can trust. I don't trust nobody,
Speaker 1: And Jay was a big brother, big brother. I feel
Speaker 1: like both of y'all might have reacted emotionally though, meaning
Speaker 1: that like you reacted emotionally when you was on stage
Speaker 1: and you ranted and then he replied in a record,
Speaker 1: you know, that's not really his his character to do
Speaker 1: something like that, to put out like this is what
Speaker 1: I did for such and such. I mean, yeah, but
Speaker 1: he he did it in a brotherly way. You know,
Speaker 1: he could have went all. He could have released an
Speaker 1: entire record or something like that. It's just a bar.
Speaker 1: You could have could have went crazy, got every single
Speaker 1: piece of information and possible my life and stuff. No,
Speaker 1: the finances are you know so um, even like when
Speaker 1: I tweeted I was in debt, that gave me power
Speaker 1: that I took my power back because it's like someone
Speaker 1: trying to say, like, yo, if you say this, you're
Speaker 1: not gonna be cool no more. And it's like, man,
Speaker 1: my financial situation don't make me Yeah, I'm in debt
Speaker 1: now what and I'm still Yeah, you did the eminem
Speaker 1: and a mile when you say it about myself before
Speaker 1: somebody else can use it against me. Yeah, that's what
Speaker 1: I call living your truth. To living your truth, so
Speaker 1: you know, when you lived the truth, nobody can use
Speaker 1: your truth against you. Yeah. You know. Um, when you
Speaker 1: and Jay that now we're good. You know, we're tweeting.
Speaker 1: I mean we're texting each other. It's positive energy. Have
Speaker 1: y'all seen each other. I haven't seen him, but I
Speaker 1: could feel him. Or you know what keeps what keeps
Speaker 1: you brothers like y'all from just you know, come to
Speaker 1: the house, man, let's have a meal, Let's let's let's
Speaker 1: sit down and talk face to face out of the eye.
Speaker 1: Because every time I, you know, see him doing an interview,
Speaker 1: whether they would let him in, whoever he's saying, that's
Speaker 1: that's my brother, like I love him. Like, so what
Speaker 1: stops you off from just face to face communication. We'll
Speaker 1: do it sometimes. Also, like when you have like such
Speaker 1: similar personalities and people are you know, creating their own
Speaker 1: existence in their own world and their own simulation or whatever.
Speaker 1: You know, they need to do it on their own.
Speaker 1: You know, when we were doing Watch the Throne, I
Speaker 1: was there, you know, in service to Jay, in service
Speaker 1: to myself too, you know, but I was there where
Speaker 1: any idea that Givanchi artwork on Watch the Throne, Like
Speaker 1: the first time you ever saw the Givanchi dog was
Speaker 1: on ham was on a ham cover or that you know,
Speaker 1: the oldest be the producers were working with. Every piece
Speaker 1: of information was open source directly for you know, my
Speaker 1: idol for Jay and that's where we were at that time.
Speaker 1: And if that's the case, then you know, yeah, he's
Speaker 1: gonna be around more. You know. If I you know,
Speaker 1: I went off and you know, started focusing on clothes
Speaker 1: and uh building my company and my you know, my
Speaker 1: factory and my office and just focus on my family
Speaker 1: all this, and you know that's what happened. Jay said,
Speaker 1: you went too far talking about his family. Do you
Speaker 1: feel like you feel like you went too far? What
Speaker 1: pends on how you look at it. If we're a family,
Speaker 1: if we're brothers and we are family, then then it's
Speaker 1: my family. If we're business or so shits and this,
Speaker 1: then it was too far, gotcha, you know, respectfully, you know, Um,
Speaker 1: you know, I gotta say, you know, I was hurt
Speaker 1: about I was hurt about them not coming to the wedding.
Speaker 1: I understand it was going through some things. But if
Speaker 1: it's family, you know, you're not gonna miss a wedding,
Speaker 1: you know. And I'm not I'm not using this interview
Speaker 1: to put any negative things, but I gotta state, yeah,
Speaker 1: I gotta state my truth, like and then that one
Speaker 1: thing happens, and another thing happens, another thing, have another
Speaker 1: things happening you just start coming up with all type
Speaker 1: of crazy ideas in your head and stuff like why
Speaker 1: and it obviously it's me. I'm like, wow, personality and
Speaker 1: stuff from like the cousin. You can't bring nowhere all
Speaker 1: this type of stuff obviously. Uh. But uh, that's interesting
Speaker 1: about the wedding. Did did they not come because you
Speaker 1: know in the press it was Beyonce they has a
Speaker 1: problem with Kim or you know, they don't like all
Speaker 1: the Kardashian reality show type thing, or maybe now in hindsight,
Speaker 1: maybe it was because they had their own issues that
Speaker 1: they was trying to work out. What do you think
Speaker 1: it was? I'm not sure. I'm past it, but at
Speaker 1: the time I was hurt about it. Did you ask him?
Speaker 1: I don't think I've asked them that question directly, maybe
Speaker 1: talking through someone that worked with him and that kind
Speaker 1: of thing. But I think you gotta address what bothers you. Hey,
Speaker 1: I think that's what might be causing that, what causes
Speaker 1: the breakthroughs. You know, when you're not asking the things
Speaker 1: that you want to ask, Like those are questions you
Speaker 1: can get answers for, Like some things you can't get
Speaker 1: answered for, but that one you can get an answered
Speaker 1: for I don't think the answer fixes it. True. True.
Speaker 1: I want to go back to something you said speaking
Speaker 1: about fixing something like how did you, as a man,
Speaker 1: forgive yourself for you know, you said you feel like
Speaker 1: you let your your wife down because you hired the security.
Speaker 1: How did you get over that because that's not your fault,
Speaker 1: that's a chance. I mean, she wasn't here. I would
Speaker 1: never forgive myself, you know, it's just bucked out when
Speaker 1: you're super a high profile and this celebrity, the concept
Speaker 1: of celebrity. You're like as famous as the president, but
Speaker 1: you don't have National Guard with you. You gotta hire
Speaker 1: your own. You gotta make your own like you know,
Speaker 1: community guard. So you just it's just a constant thing basically,
Speaker 1: the idea of security and the way it relates to
Speaker 1: fame and this that all that. It's like, yeah, especially
Speaker 1: with you know, social media and all these different things
Speaker 1: and like, oh, that's like my wife doesn't even wear
Speaker 1: big diamonds anymore. We don't keep no jury, no money
Speaker 1: in the house, no you know, name, high art, none
Speaker 1: of that. We don't keep any of that any place,
Speaker 1: you know, where our kids stay. Yeah, that's one of
Speaker 1: the things I'll talk to my therapists about though, because
Speaker 1: it's it's a very vulnerable feeling being a father and
Speaker 1: a husband, because our job is to protect and provide.
Speaker 1: But you we're not with our kids twenty four seven,
Speaker 1: like our kids at school right now, Like anything can happen.
Speaker 1: You know, you're not with your wife all the time,
Speaker 1: so anything can happen. So it's kind of like a
Speaker 1: very vulnerable feeling like you almost got to let go
Speaker 1: and let God so to speak. You know, do you
Speaker 1: think you think it's easy to be feeless when it's
Speaker 1: just you that you have to worry about. But you know,
Speaker 1: not being a husband and a parent do to make
Speaker 1: you more afraid to take more chances? Yeah, but you
Speaker 1: gotta stay brave. You have to follow your gut feeling.
Speaker 1: Know I have everyone has a position in the universe,
Speaker 1: and you know, I've been made and had the experiences
Speaker 1: I had for a reason to be expressive, to to
Speaker 1: to go through going to the hospital, to go through
Speaker 1: the dynamics of you know, family, brother working relationships. You know,
Speaker 1: I gotta follow my gut when I have that fear.
Speaker 1: I said, have to be you know, brave, and you
Speaker 1: know I think as interested in this world. That's like
Speaker 1: looking for sound bites. Like when we talk about the
Speaker 1: Jay thing, it's like, you know what, I do love Jay,
Speaker 1: and I don't have all the answers for every issue
Speaker 1: I've ever had. I don't have a sound bite for everything.
Speaker 1: That's fine, you know, Like you said, sometimes a language
Speaker 1: is an overrated formal communication, right, Like words don't always
Speaker 1: do it? Do it? Justice? I saw something you tweeted
Speaker 1: and it was to the effective us. Some things can't
Speaker 1: be explained. Some things just need to be experienced. What's
Speaker 1: what's that? Expand on that a little bit. When you
Speaker 1: want to express yourself, A lot of times words can
Speaker 1: get in the way justice innate feeling that we have.
Speaker 1: You know, when someone's talking to you, trying to talk
Speaker 1: you into something or something like that, and you're just like, look,
Speaker 1: this just don't feel right. You know. Oftentimes people playing
Speaker 1: ball doing karate whatever it is they and people that
Speaker 1: they don't mention karate. Since the eighties, karate used to
Speaker 1: be the ship, you know, but you see all the
Speaker 1: karate films like, but it always be you know, get
Speaker 1: out of your head, go from your gut, go from
Speaker 1: your cheat, do what you feel and That's what I'm
Speaker 1: big on. Stop strategizing so much, Stop setting so many plays,
Speaker 1: Stop doing things only based in fear, like the universe
Speaker 1: will assist you when you are acting in love. I
Speaker 1: tweeted this thing where I said, when you're acting in love,
Speaker 1: you're like a drop of water and you have the
Speaker 1: ocean as your army. When you act in fear, it's
Speaker 1: just you and your money. Now, you could take your
Speaker 1: money and put it in bitcoin, and put a credit form,
Speaker 1: put in cash, or all your cash, and then and
Speaker 1: then stand up to the ocean, and who's gonna win.
Speaker 1: I'm understanding. I think your mind stayed a little bit
Speaker 1: more like when you was on stage and you'd be
Speaker 1: going into those rants, it was out of fear. You're
Speaker 1: afraid at that time. I think those rants, I think
Speaker 1: to do the rants though we're brave. I think we're
Speaker 1: in a place now where bravery is more important than perfection,
Speaker 1: Feeling is more important than thought. People get so they
Speaker 1: put so much thought into it, what's going to happen?
Speaker 1: So I actually think that the rents came from a
Speaker 1: place a bravery and I had enough of the politics,
Speaker 1: you know, And that's the world that we're in right now,
Speaker 1: like people are speaking their truth. You know, people are
Speaker 1: expressing themselves. And you know, I've been waiting for this.
Speaker 1: I've been waiting for this moment because it's always been
Speaker 1: such a you know, just a politically rand you know,
Speaker 1: society and mentality that everyone's been in and stuff like
Speaker 1: don't do that, you need to do this, you need
Speaker 1: to you don't need to hang out with them, you
Speaker 1: need to hang out with them, you know, blah blah
Speaker 1: all this and like trying to please people and all
Speaker 1: that stuff. And I don't feel like right now like
Speaker 1: people are trying to please people the same way they're
Speaker 1: trying to please themselves. That could be a bad thing too, though,
Speaker 1: right because I feel like we're all public service at
Speaker 1: the end of the day, we're here to serve the
Speaker 1: needs of the public. We're all greater than ourselves. Well,
Speaker 1: we definitely got to touch you on the word bad
Speaker 1: and the idea of good and bad things just are
Speaker 1: it depends on what side you are if something is
Speaker 1: good or bad. It depends on what your agenda is.
Speaker 1: But of course we can speak in terms of bad.
Speaker 1: You know, we we haven't got our language hasn't evolved
Speaker 1: to what either of us are feeling at this point.
Speaker 1: So both of us could be thinking in two thousand
Speaker 1: and thirty, but we still got to communicate in two
Speaker 1: and eighteen because that's when this is dropping. So we
Speaker 1: because you always seem to play play in the future. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I guess we don't. I guess we could be in
Speaker 1: the future. Yeah, people got to catch up. Yeah, you
Speaker 1: talked about the politics, you know, you said on stage.
Speaker 1: I was saying that with the word bad bad, because
Speaker 1: people are people. People are so raised on the idea
Speaker 1: of home team, away team, positive, negative, good, bad, Like
Speaker 1: I think negative gets too much of a negative rap.
Speaker 1: You know, it's life is a balance. Yeah, that's when
Speaker 1: we were talking earlier. I was liking, I don't believe
Speaker 1: in any good or bad experiences. I feel like everything's
Speaker 1: just a part of the process of life. Yeah. You know,
Speaker 1: when you think about bad experiences that have happened to you,
Speaker 1: do you still look at them as just bad or
Speaker 1: did you learn something from them? There's no bad and
Speaker 1: there's no enemies, even people want to kill you or
Speaker 1: not your enemy. That's something I was going to tweet,
Speaker 1: and I was like, I feel this, but I don't
Speaker 1: know if people would take it in a certain way.
Speaker 1: Got a lot of ideas that afford and you know,
Speaker 1: I'm just gonna keep building like a mountain, the mountain
Speaker 1: of like a snowball snowball ideas, and just keep getting
Speaker 1: more and more more more expressive as I go. That's
Speaker 1: what the book is going. But you know, I don't
Speaker 1: even know if it's a book. It's like stream. It's
Speaker 1: all about streams. Everything is stream. That's why that's an
Speaker 1: amazing word. That's an amazing modern and futuristic word. Streams,
Speaker 1: streams of conscious and streaming music. Everything is just a stream.
Speaker 1: It relates to water. You know, it's like exactly you
Speaker 1: know where we will be. We will be ultra like
Speaker 1: being an ultra like stream. We will be all just
Speaker 1: a stream. I feel like Kanye West the brand, well,
Speaker 1: Kanye West, the man is rebelling against Kanye West the brand.
Speaker 1: You know, my email is not at Kanye West. You
Speaker 1: will have retired from whatever that meant to be Kanye West.
Speaker 1: So I think the spirit, my spirit, my attitude is
Speaker 1: a representation of fighting for your own truthful live. Like
Speaker 1: if I died tomorrow, stuff it would live past me.
Speaker 1: The Yeah, it's like a pock thing and stuff. That's
Speaker 1: your name though, just like Tupac, that was his name,
Speaker 1: Like your mother gave you the name Kanye West there
Speaker 1: and it means the only one. You know. One of
Speaker 1: the incredible things I thought about when I went to
Speaker 1: the hospital is on Kendrick's album, there is the skit,
Speaker 1: uh what Tupackets talk about the Black man at age thirty? Right,
Speaker 1: And I'm like, I made it to thirty nine. I
Speaker 1: made it to thirty nine with my opinion alive, with
Speaker 1: my opinion. I'm forty and I still have my opinion.
Speaker 1: You know. One of the things that was incredible when I,
Speaker 1: you know, got out of the hospital was I had
Speaker 1: lost my confidence. Kanye was with no confidence. I was
Speaker 1: like Michael Jordan new jumping Yeah, like and you could
Speaker 1: see it, that's what I'm saying, sunken place and all
Speaker 1: this stuff. You know, It's like, uh and wow. I
Speaker 1: never had the empathy for people who lacked confidence. I
Speaker 1: had so much of it. I didn't know what it
Speaker 1: was like to be without it. Do you mean zero
Speaker 1: confidence or you just was less confident than usual. It
Speaker 1: just wasn't Black Panther Superman level confidence. It was you know,
Speaker 1: it was placed into the simulation, and shit, I was
Speaker 1: like completely could be like molded and controlled and everything.
Speaker 1: If that was the case, if I was, you know,
Speaker 1: I wouldn't I wouldn't speak up, you know, I you
Speaker 1: know I'm gonna speak up and stuff like where I
Speaker 1: was and I got the hospital. It's even when I
Speaker 1: did the next fashion show, you know it, it got
Speaker 1: all these good reviews. Yeah, because I was less confident
Speaker 1: because it's like they're there, boy, that's exactly what we wanted.
Speaker 1: Oh okay, okay, So you were you traded authenticity for approval.
Speaker 1: I didn't trade it. I just didn't have it. I
Speaker 1: didn't have me. I didn't have my confidence, so that
Speaker 1: superpower could never Like if I was like homeless, any situation,
Speaker 1: you could take everything you could black mirror me. You
Speaker 1: can put shit on the media and say yay, fuck
Speaker 1: the goat, that all this type of ship, and you
Speaker 1: will not take my confidence away. What took Kanye's confidence?
Speaker 1: That's like that's literally like somebody bringing Krypton make the Superman.
Speaker 1: That's why I taking the herb from Black Panther. Like,
Speaker 1: what took your confidence? I don't know exactly what it was.
Speaker 1: It had something to do. I mean maybe a doctor
Speaker 1: could give an explanation, but it had to do or
Speaker 1: something with coming through the breakthrough. I like to call
Speaker 1: it the breakthrough and have the breakdown coming through the
Speaker 1: breakthrough that you know. But also I think it was
Speaker 1: incredible because it was a forced amount. It was forced
Speaker 1: humility because I positive or negative, I like a humility.
Speaker 1: It just is what it is. But previously I would
Speaker 1: have looked at humility is more of a negative thing,
Speaker 1: and even if you read certain definitions, it's it's kind
Speaker 1: of got a negative vibe. But as you said before,
Speaker 1: no positive or negative. But also that humility gave me
Speaker 1: time to to grow and everyone just backed off. A
Speaker 1: lot of people depend on me. They asked for a
Speaker 1: lot of things that like Superman do this for me.
Speaker 1: And you know, one of the things that the irony
Speaker 1: because people always talk about the Sunken Place and you
Speaker 1: think the meme. They got the meme of you and
Speaker 1: you're you're the main character from Get Out with the
Speaker 1: Tears in your eyes and Chris Teacup. Yeah that I
Speaker 1: never saw the meme, but I could, I could, I
Speaker 1: get the picture of it. M The funny thing about
Speaker 1: that is that my wife like she's like, I'm responsible,
Speaker 1: Like Yay's mom has passed away, I'm responsible to take
Speaker 1: care of this superhero. And my mom might have had
Speaker 1: these things where she made sure I never took my
Speaker 1: Superman cape off. You know, I got this rap that
Speaker 1: say parents are the strippers striped kids, that the confidence
Speaker 1: teach white dominance, question your common sense. I've been washed
Speaker 1: in tradition. The a'm a Rents hopped off the alma
Speaker 1: stile and made a'm a god. Um. Now, when I
Speaker 1: said it, I like it for this interview. When I
Speaker 1: said it on a song, I didn't like the frequency
Speaker 1: of it because it felt dated because it touched on
Speaker 1: race too much. So it's not that not that racing.
Speaker 1: We definitely are dealing with racism, but I want to
Speaker 1: push future concepts you know now I'm doing. I'm giving
Speaker 1: you two streams of consciences. In one, I want to
Speaker 1: talk about my wife. I also want to talk about
Speaker 1: Harriet Tubman on twenty dollars bill. We're following you. You
Speaker 1: said it up good. That was the moment that I
Speaker 1: wanted to use bitcoin and I saw Harry Tubbing on
Speaker 1: a twenty dollar bill. Why it's like when you just
Speaker 1: see like all the slave movies. It's like, why you
Speaker 1: gotta keep reminding us about slavery. Why don't you show
Speaker 1: us put Michael Jordan on a twenty dollars bill? But
Speaker 1: Harriet tubbing with the slave who rebelled though, like hearing
Speaker 1: that turner in a different frequency. Though they kind of
Speaker 1: would like you when you said you didn't feel like
Speaker 1: being controlled. Yeah, you know what, it's funny Like my
Speaker 1: boy Tremaine tweeted, you know, a picture of me and
Speaker 1: Virgil and he said, Malcolm X among of the king
Speaker 1: and all these people got mass, Like how can you
Speaker 1: compare them to that? Man? I know this is going
Speaker 1: to cause an uproar, but certain certain icons is just
Speaker 1: too far in the pass and that relatable and that's
Speaker 1: what makes them safe. Like they'll let you go on
Speaker 1: the Grammys and talk about slavery and all that and
Speaker 1: racism because it's not talking about buying stock, it's not
Speaker 1: talking about buying property. Yeah, economic empolament, Yeah, it's not
Speaker 1: talking about economic power. You can complain as hard as
Speaker 1: you want on that platform, but it's not scary or
Speaker 1: that's what ultimately got model for King Junior killed like
Speaker 1: it wasn't when he was fighting the civil rights. That's
Speaker 1: when he started talking about economic empolament. When he was
Speaker 1: playing things like the Poor People's March, which is gonna
Speaker 1: be the largest march on Washington with people of all
Speaker 1: colors that were just pointing this enfranchise, that's when they
Speaker 1: took Martin up. How Cay, how is the comparison with
Speaker 1: virgin Virgil though? What was saying that he's he's more Martin,
Speaker 1: I'm more Malcolm. Oh, but there is a civil rights
Speaker 1: element to the ability to create your own industry because
Speaker 1: even when we did rap everything we got. Basketball and
Speaker 1: rap are both someone else's industry, so you're always a player.
Speaker 1: M it took Michael Jordan a long time to become
Speaker 1: an owner. Would that said because you mentioned Virgil like
Speaker 1: he's not a creative director for Louis Baton, feel like
Speaker 1: he went from being an owner with off White to
Speaker 1: not being a player. How do you how do you
Speaker 1: feel about that some people have to do things just
Speaker 1: to prove that they can be done and whether they
Speaker 1: become the billionaire Da da dada. On the other side
Speaker 1: of it, you know, Obama went into that office as
Speaker 1: a public servant in a service position, and it didn't
Speaker 1: matter the amount of money, it didn't matter the amount
Speaker 1: of ownership. The world, the world needed to see that
Speaker 1: this was a possibility. So for Virgil, it's like the
Speaker 1: world just needs to see things. You know, I was
Speaker 1: afraid to speak the way I speak now. I was
Speaker 1: afraid to show you, you know, my office in Calabasas.
Speaker 1: I was afraid to show you there's three hundred acres
Speaker 1: that I just purchased that I'm building my first community on,
Speaker 1: my first five properties on because you know, I felt
Speaker 1: like it would be shut down. But it's not about me.
Speaker 1: Even if I got killed tomorrow and they shut everything down.
Speaker 1: The fact that I put the idea out is the
Speaker 1: black panther ship. That is a kid watching this in
Speaker 1: high school and a kid in college because at a
Speaker 1: certain point, you know Pock, at a certain point he
Speaker 1: just had to message and hand the baton. He's like,
Speaker 1: I might not be here, I mean not change the world,
Speaker 1: but I mean the seed and somebody else that mean change. Yeah,
Speaker 1: And that's the thing. The problem is obviously self reservation
Speaker 1: is the first law nature, but people won't hand over
Speaker 1: codes completely to the next generation out of just protecting themselves. Like,
Speaker 1: some of the stuff we're touching on is very scary,
Speaker 1: and I'm having to be brave to talk to you
Speaker 1: about it. There's so many elements in our life that
Speaker 1: create an icon that you're supposed to look, you're supposed
Speaker 1: to feel like you're not as good as the icon.
Speaker 1: I have an issue with that. I'm just gonna say it,
Speaker 1: backlash whatever. I have an issue with ideas that are
Speaker 1: presented that make you feel less for your entire life.
Speaker 1: We look at human beings as more than men or
Speaker 1: more than women. Yeah, yeah, and then when they do
Speaker 1: something that's human, yeah, they're like, oh they let us down.
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, bro. When I was in the hospital, especially
Speaker 1: the black people that worked at the hospital, and I
Speaker 1: was on that hospital bed, and I felt like they
Speaker 1: were like my family members, and I looked at them
Speaker 1: in their in their eyes, and I don't know, it
Speaker 1: was like the tribe or something. It's like, as much
Speaker 1: as I want to say we're one race, one he
Speaker 1: met one living organism. You know, there is an element
Speaker 1: of the black celebrity in America. And when I was
Speaker 1: laid out in the hospital bad looking through the window
Speaker 1: at a black UCLA employee, I felt like I had
Speaker 1: left them down. I felt like they was looking at
Speaker 1: me like just shaking a head. That just sad. It's like, oh,
Speaker 1: that's yay, that's yay in that hospital bad, that's our
Speaker 1: gay bro, like, that's that's our the ya juice, like
Speaker 1: he can't like they can't, they can't break him. That
Speaker 1: your tribe though. I think I think, you know, one
Speaker 1: of the one of the big moments was when you
Speaker 1: met with Donald Trump, and I think that led a
Speaker 1: lot of people down. You know. The funny thing is
Speaker 1: I always think about that Dave Chappelle skit of the
Speaker 1: was Benjamin Bixie. It's like they created you know about
Speaker 1: the blind Rasons, right, yeah, the blind Raceists and stuff
Speaker 1: like Clayton Bigsby. Right. It's like I felt like when
Speaker 1: I came out and expressed what I said, and when
Speaker 1: I felt that was almost like a Clayton Bigsby moment,
Speaker 1: when everybody's head exploded, like, my ya, George Bush don't
Speaker 1: care about black people, cannot in any way, this dude
Speaker 1: has to like dis Trump at all points, at all costs,
Speaker 1: everything about and who was some dynamics to this. So
Speaker 1: many people around me said, don't express your feelings why
Speaker 1: your brand, You're this, You're that, You're that you said
Speaker 1: you would have voted for. That's the feeling I'm you're
Speaker 1: talking about, right, Yeah, that feeling. Yeah, because people first
Speaker 1: thing they say is racism. They say, well, what makes
Speaker 1: George Bush more any more racist than Trump? There's a question,
Speaker 1: my friend asked me. My responses, well, racism isn't the
Speaker 1: deal breaker from here. If that was the case, I
Speaker 1: wouldn't live in America. That's a rich that's a rich
Speaker 1: nigh though. Oh no, as a rich yeah ideal with racism,
Speaker 1: I do it just best for the indusgated community. But
Speaker 1: all the tip shit, I deal with it. So I
Speaker 1: I got love for Obama. I got love for everybody,
Speaker 1: every human being that ever existed. But I felt like
Speaker 1: Obama was perfect. He was almost like Nike or is
Speaker 1: where if you or Nike? When I was at Nike
Speaker 1: that Nike. Now like when I said, if you sew
Speaker 1: in the good with everything and you got your whole
Speaker 1: thing playing down a strategize, if you have like a
Speaker 1: rogue character like me that comes in and says we
Speaker 1: need to do this for Chicago, we need to do this,
Speaker 1: that you're gonna take it with a grain of salt.
Speaker 1: You're gonna be cordial, You're gonna be all you know,
Speaker 1: all that. But you're like, you're not really gonna change anything,
Speaker 1: you know. Night when I was at Nike, they weren't
Speaker 1: willing to change anything. They feel n who I have
Speaker 1: the most respect for. I have respect for everyone at
Speaker 1: Nike too, these guys, Mark Parker. You know, I just
Speaker 1: gotta speak out as a as a parent, you know,
Speaker 1: and apologize to this man forever, speaking ill on his
Speaker 1: name and his company, because he gave me that shot
Speaker 1: when we did the original Easy at Nike and he
Speaker 1: was there with me. I was on a plane with
Speaker 1: him on sketching and he said, look at this sketch
Speaker 1: because got a chance. And he put me next to
Speaker 1: Tinker hot Field and it's me and don See making
Speaker 1: the first Yeezy with Tinker hot Field and Mark Parker.
Speaker 1: That was the squad that made the original Nike Yeasy.
Speaker 1: So I just want I always wanted to express that
Speaker 1: as as a father, and you know, and when my
Speaker 1: karma comes, you know, I'll accept it in real time,
Speaker 1: you know, like kill Bill. You know what I'm saying.
Speaker 1: When that karma comes to get you, people I got
Speaker 1: a frustration sometimes, yeah, but I got some karma waiting
Speaker 1: on me so um, but I just wanted to express
Speaker 1: that because we're putting into the universe only good energy,
Speaker 1: and every moment was a great moment because if Mark
Speaker 1: Parker hadn't given me that moment, then he help turbo
Speaker 1: charge me. And the combination Louis Vuitton. I had Louis
Speaker 1: Vuitton sneaker and Nike sneaker come out at the same time,
Speaker 1: so they helped turbo charge me. And I had a
Speaker 1: conversation with my friend in Chris's house down the street.
Speaker 1: And you talk about some rich egga shit, I'll tell
Speaker 1: you something, a regular man shit that every man deals with.
Speaker 1: My girlfriend has a child. We have a baby. You
Speaker 1: make decisions in your life based on providing for your family.
Speaker 1: I love Nike. I loved the Nike. I have to
Speaker 1: put the eed on it for the stockholders. So but
Speaker 1: when I was, you know, younger, I used to sketch
Speaker 1: to swoosh everything, you know, So it was heartbreaking for
Speaker 1: me to have to leave Nike. But they refused to
Speaker 1: allow me to get royalty on my shoe, and I
Speaker 1: knew I had the hottest shoe in the world. I
Speaker 1: knew Yeasy was the hottest brand in the world, but
Speaker 1: I couldn't get royalties. They just said, look, you can
Speaker 1: make five thousand shoes or ten thousand shoes and we'll
Speaker 1: give some of the proceeds to your favorite charity. But
Speaker 1: it was nothing to build. No. Now we building factories.
Speaker 1: They wouldn't let me build anything. Trying to create generational wealth. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and just put out more amazing ideas to the world,
Speaker 1: both things, generational wealth, more ideas. My friend was that
Speaker 1: Chris's house and expressed to me that he had received
Speaker 1: a royalty because he was a store and I'm easy
Speaker 1: and they wouldn't give me a royalty. That was like
Speaker 1: the final straw. I was talking to Puma and talking
Speaker 1: to Adidas. The dude didn't sign me at Puma. Definitely
Speaker 1: needs to lose his job and stuff. I'm not gonna
Speaker 1: say his name, but can you imagine so, because you know,
Speaker 1: with that infrastructure and these ideas in this connection I have,
Speaker 1: it wasn't no way. It wasn't gonna be a unicorn.
Speaker 1: You know, Jeezy is a unicorse, a billion dollar company.
Speaker 1: We were at fifteen million two years ago, and we're
Speaker 1: gonna hit a billion this year. It's never ever been
Speaker 1: heard of. So that make you anxious if they give
Speaker 1: you anxiety, Uh, okay, that's what it's supposed to be.
Speaker 1: You know, if I really had some percentage that related
Speaker 1: to my actual influence, I'd be like a multi trillionaire.
Speaker 1: So that's fine. So I made the decision and I left,
Speaker 1: and I went with someone that would allow me to
Speaker 1: build something. You know, I can call the CEO of
Speaker 1: Adidas directly. I have a cell phone. Mark Parker wouldn't
Speaker 1: get on the phone with me. Really, I don't even
Speaker 1: think you should be apologizing them. He wouldn't even give
Speaker 1: you a courtesy call. Yeah, you know, they'd say things
Speaker 1: like I don't know why people like the Yeasies and
Speaker 1: you know fairies. So and the funny thing is, look
Speaker 1: at Nike now. Literally all the people that ever work
Speaker 1: with me are like the hottest people at Nike now,
Speaker 1: Like they gave them the deals because we left and
Speaker 1: ripped their heads off. Um, how did that make you
Speaker 1: feel with me? Leave you to go back to a
Speaker 1: place that stifled job? Basically, who are you saying they're
Speaker 1: talking about? Like, yeah, um they got families, bro. You
Speaker 1: know these corporations. They provide an opportunity. These are my friends,
Speaker 1: they have families. If I'm not going to provide them
Speaker 1: the same opportunity, I'm not going to stand in their
Speaker 1: way either. But you are provide them the same opportunity.
Speaker 1: It's just more of ale Y'll are building something as
Speaker 1: opposed to something that already exists. Now, like a lot
Speaker 1: of times, people like the room the space. You know,
Speaker 1: when you get such a big corporation, you could build
Speaker 1: up your own brand next to it. If you're really
Speaker 1: you know, close to me, it's just going to be
Speaker 1: my brand. So people you know, want to build their
Speaker 1: own brand actually need to be as far away from
Speaker 1: me as possible to just to get out of the shadow.
Speaker 1: I'm kind of we kind of weird because you know,
Speaker 1: you being Kanye West. The heat that you bring heats
Speaker 1: them up just enough. Like I wouldn't know a Virgil
Speaker 1: and he hadn't been Kanye West, his creative director or
Speaker 1: creative collaborator or whatever you wanted to call it. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's interesting. Now all unfolds and you feel different ways.
Speaker 1: There's a lot of there's mixed emotions. They're like, oh,
Speaker 1: this is my crew, My crew is working for Nike
Speaker 1: killing it. You know, I want my crew next to me,
Speaker 1: because like when I get on the phone with Virgil,
Speaker 1: that's my you know, that's my team. He's he's like
Speaker 1: the strategists. I'm I'm the emotor. I'm like Tesla. I'm
Speaker 1: thinking of all the ideas like Nikola, Tesla like not
Speaker 1: the car. And I'm thinking of all these ideas. And
Speaker 1: Virgil is able to take all of those ideas and
Speaker 1: then architect them because he is an architect, like you
Speaker 1: would the school for architecture. But also this is great training.
Speaker 1: You know, people gotta like I heard Nike dust stuff
Speaker 1: like sends people to business school. But there still like
Speaker 1: a Nike like best believe Don Matt, Virgil, Jerry still
Speaker 1: Donda at the end of the day, Louis Baton, It's
Speaker 1: still Donda at the end of the day. So I know,
Speaker 1: we go We're going to back to the presidential thing.
Speaker 1: So I want to go back to Brundia too. We'll
Speaker 1: go back 's go back to the president thing. I'm
Speaker 1: still trying to figure out what's the correlationship between Obama
Speaker 1: and Nike and how it relates to Trump. See, Obama
Speaker 1: came to me before he ran for office, and he
Speaker 1: met with me and my mother to let me know
Speaker 1: he was going to run for office because I am
Speaker 1: his favorite artist of all time, because I am the
Speaker 1: greatest artist of all time. You know what, It makes sense.
Speaker 1: He got good taste. Yeah, he got his confidence back.
Speaker 1: I'm just saying that it's a flat statement up to
Speaker 1: this point. You know, after me, there will be greater
Speaker 1: you know, but this is this is yay, Like this
Speaker 1: is like past anything that's happened up to this point.
Speaker 1: This is the best, even Michael Jackson, Prince Steven Wonder,
Speaker 1: whoever else you want to throw out there, because I
Speaker 1: throw out there. I though Howard Hughes in there. I
Speaker 1: through Henry Ford, I though Walt Disney, I through Steve
Speaker 1: Jobs got you in there also. So you can't say
Speaker 1: it's a lot because something like that is a matter
Speaker 1: of opinion. Yeah, and the debate, they're right, it's naven
Speaker 1: in debate. It's just the truth. Yeah, it's man, When
Speaker 1: you when you, when you're the greatest, is funny, man,
Speaker 1: you know what I mean? Like Ali lived a great life.
Speaker 1: You gotta know who you are, absolutely, you gotta know
Speaker 1: who you are. Um. So Obama it's like, Yay's like
Speaker 1: my favorite artist. I want you to support. I'm running
Speaker 1: for office, my office. It's dope. You know, I'm gonna
Speaker 1: get a black president students. Matt COO's from you know, Chicago.
Speaker 1: Then when I went on stage, and it would have
Speaker 1: been good if this video didn't get out, but you
Speaker 1: saw the video, let me called you jack? Yeah, you know,
Speaker 1: he never called me to apologize, just the same person
Speaker 1: that sat down with me and my mom. I think
Speaker 1: should have communicated to me directly and being like yo, yay, yo,
Speaker 1: you know what it is. I'm in the room and
Speaker 1: it's just a joke. You know why he said that though,
Speaker 1: I mean at that time, so words from Obama probably
Speaker 1: could have helped. He's the situation, not a little bit,
Speaker 1: you know what I mean, other pools to call you
Speaker 1: a jack as the point more fuel on the fight.
Speaker 1: You know, No, nobody's perfect. I love Obama. I'm sure,
Speaker 1: I'm sure we'll hang out Richard Francis Island or whatever.
Speaker 1: You know what I mean, It's it would be cool.
Speaker 1: I just think that we were in a period where,
Speaker 1: you know, he had so much stuff to deal with.
Speaker 1: He couldn't deal with a you know wild card Like me,
Speaker 1: I think that's too unpredictable, someone that wasn't being controlled
Speaker 1: by strategy and thoughts with someone who's acting on feelings.
Speaker 1: We knew that already up to that point, though. I mean,
Speaker 1: if anything, when you said, George Bust, don't camp up
Speaker 1: black people on stage in front of millions live, people
Speaker 1: should have realized that that moment, we can't control that guy. Yeah,
Speaker 1: you think you think people would have realized that, wouldn't
Speaker 1: You guess they didn't, So in our kind of I
Speaker 1: felt away a little bit about Obama that I'm your
Speaker 1: favorite artist. You play Touched the Sky at your inauguration,
Speaker 1: and now all of a sudden, Kendrick and Jay and
Speaker 1: all these all the people you invite to the White
Speaker 1: House like now, ease your favorite rappers now. And I
Speaker 1: ain't got a problem with these rappers, but you know
Speaker 1: I'm your favorite. But I'm not safe. But that's why
Speaker 1: you love me. So just tell me you love me,
Speaker 1: that's all, And tell the world you love me. Don't
Speaker 1: tell the world on the jackass. I'm fighting hard enough.
Speaker 1: Something about me going on stage was similar to what
Speaker 1: you was doing, because I'm fighting to break the simulation
Speaker 1: break the setup. That didn't make no sense. It's not
Speaker 1: that I'm particularly fighting for Beyonce's video. It was every
Speaker 1: time a word show has ever done that. Just fucking
Speaker 1: with artists. We are hsp highly sensitive people, artists. That's
Speaker 1: what you love about us. So you're gonna line up
Speaker 1: a whole bunch of artists and put us in some
Speaker 1: bumass suits and shit, this idea from like two hundred
Speaker 1: years ago. We dressed like two hundred years ago, lined
Speaker 1: up trying to wait for a gold statue, and you're
Speaker 1: gonna make us feel like shit. You know, it's five
Speaker 1: of us and shi four of us got to go
Speaker 1: to the restaurant with our friends and be like, man,
Speaker 1: we ain't We're nothing. Fuck that, Yeah, fuck that. I
Speaker 1: remember you said that you were upset because Rance said
Speaker 1: she refused to perform at the VMA unless you won
Speaker 1: the award. I was one of the I think as
Speaker 1: a Sacramento you went on that rent. Now you know what,
Speaker 1: I don't know if that's true. I don't. I don't.
Speaker 1: I honestly don't know if that's the true thing. I
Speaker 1: like it. Don't turn in the fact that was fake
Speaker 1: news you put up there. No someone told me that,
Speaker 1: but I haven't heard that from her and it's not confirmed,
Speaker 1: so I don't know if it's true. So that shows
Speaker 1: you like people put thoughts in your head to separate,
Speaker 1: you know. It's people who play both sides. People are
Speaker 1: somebody switching sides. There's people who will literally talk to
Speaker 1: you that I get a peace of information, drop a
Speaker 1: negative piece of talk to other side, get drop negative
Speaker 1: the information on both sides. And then it showed up.
Speaker 1: I'm like, what's up? You know? So I don't know
Speaker 1: so I could talk to I could talk to them directly.
Speaker 1: It's neither here nor there to me. But at that point,
Speaker 1: when I was on my way to the hospital, that
Speaker 1: was that affected me because I'm pure. It's like you
Speaker 1: don't appreciate pure. It's like if you don't appreciate pure,
Speaker 1: this is like more an Obama thing, Like you don't
Speaker 1: appreciate purity. You know, you don't understand the amount of
Speaker 1: bravery that it takes to be pure into your thirties
Speaker 1: and be a black in America and famous, like the
Speaker 1: amount of brain Like Richard Pryor has this piece where
Speaker 1: he talks about that. He says, like there's no such
Speaker 1: thing as someone making it and remaining pure. Like I'm
Speaker 1: talking to you in a stream right now. I'm forty
Speaker 1: years old, got a family, I'm famous, i got a
Speaker 1: billion dollar business, and I'm speaking to you in a stream. Yeah.
Speaker 1: That that bothered me. But I'm not saying I have
Speaker 1: a problem with that. I just want to put this
Speaker 1: out into the universe just to just to kind of
Speaker 1: give some people something to think about it. Now. It's interesting.
Speaker 1: It's like it's a very Gemini thing. You know. You
Speaker 1: see the trades, you see the in you and in
Speaker 1: the Pocket's like, what's wrong with expressing how you feel?
Speaker 1: You know what I mean? You get to this point
Speaker 1: where you're Kanye West, the superstar of branding, It's like
Speaker 1: they want you to be everything but human. But you're
Speaker 1: a human being being got emotions. They want you to
Speaker 1: be everything but you. But you what you're gonna say? No,
Speaker 1: I'm saying you if you feel a way about, you
Speaker 1: know something you heard that be honestly, did you feel
Speaker 1: a way about Obama calling you a jackass? You should
Speaker 1: be able to express that. Oh yeah, And then I
Speaker 1: also like had a problem you know that Obama's from Chicago,
Speaker 1: and Chicago's a murder capital the world. You know, I
Speaker 1: had a number of things that made me say, just
Speaker 1: like how there's racist Trump supporters. There's things where I'm like, well,
Speaker 1: maybe this could make a difference. You felt like President
Speaker 1: Obama could have like wave a magic wand and just
Speaker 1: got Chicago right. It's not a magic wand. You know what,
Speaker 1: it's not his fault. Man. You've seen that gray hair
Speaker 1: on that man. You don't know what that man was doing.
Speaker 1: I mean, you can only imagine, but just it took
Speaker 1: everything from everything in that man's spirit and soul and
Speaker 1: not say mentor racism every sentence. This man was a
Speaker 1: Jackie Robinson of politics. You know, he was the first
Speaker 1: person to do it. So, you know, we want to
Speaker 1: be supportive and be aligned also. But this isn't like
Speaker 1: an absolute sound bite. This isn't an obbsotite. This is
Speaker 1: an absolute hen on either one. It's complex. It's this
Speaker 1: is complex because these are voices. I might be president
Speaker 1: one day, you know, so I might be in that
Speaker 1: situation where it's harder for me to explain to the
Speaker 1: masses why something isn't happening that they feel that the
Speaker 1: concept of a president should be able to fix. So two.
Speaker 1: Obama will say that I understand, bro, Like I understand,
Speaker 1: I understand like Jay that coming to the wedding, they
Speaker 1: just had an altercation. Understand, But I have my feelings also,
Speaker 1: or so it's complex. When the black even spoke Obama, well,
Speaker 1: that was the last time we email with your mom.
Speaker 1: We did a fundraiser for midterm or for them in
Speaker 1: San Francisco, and we did a performance for them, and
Speaker 1: right before I went on stage, someone let me know
Speaker 1: that he had left. So you don't even get to
Speaker 1: see him in there. I saw him beforehand for OK.
Speaker 1: Yeah he left right before he performed. Yeah, that made
Speaker 1: you feel away? I felt away, Bro, I just don't
Speaker 1: reach out to the brother man. I'm sure you get
Speaker 1: in touch with him, just to let him know, like
Speaker 1: I feel away. He see this interview or we talked,
Speaker 1: I felt the way, I'll be feeling away, Bro, I'll
Speaker 1: be feeling I'll be feeling I got feelings, Bro, He's
Speaker 1: feeling away, Bro, I'd be feeling I'll be hey, I'd
Speaker 1: be feeling a way because these are people that you've
Speaker 1: assisted and helped them maybe possibly get to the point
Speaker 1: that they at and then when they get there, they
Speaker 1: don't give you that same love and return or supporting
Speaker 1: return when you need it. Nobody owes me anything, but
Speaker 1: I'm still gonna fee or what I feel. And I understand.
Speaker 1: That's the thing where sometimes a conversation can help show
Speaker 1: respect for a situation. You know, look, I couldn't do
Speaker 1: this because of these reasons. You know how it is.
Speaker 1: You see my gray hair. It's crazy out here. I'm
Speaker 1: I'm the leader of the free world. Yeah, sorry for
Speaker 1: calling you jackass. I appreciate your honesty. I appreciate your Gemini,
Speaker 1: your tuparcnus. I appreciate that somebody's gonna do it because
Speaker 1: I'm friends that I can't do it, but I appreciate
Speaker 1: that somebody is still willing to do it. That's why
Speaker 1: I get the interview with you. You know what I'm saying.
Speaker 1: You go off truth as you risk your life or
Speaker 1: your truth. You know the feeling? What was the feeling
Speaker 1: that made you say, you know what, I want to
Speaker 1: go meet with Donald Trump? And what yay are we
Speaker 1: talking about? When that happened? When nothing you ain't with
Speaker 1: no confidence nothing, yea, he was trying to figure things out.
Speaker 1: What ya was that? Yeah, but I'm not gonna back
Speaker 1: down after that. I'm not I'm not gonna let myself
Speaker 1: off easy by saying I met with Trump just because
Speaker 1: I was going through something. I ain't gonna give the
Speaker 1: universe that. Nah. I'm gonna face it, and they're gonna
Speaker 1: face me. This is the ya that wanted to do
Speaker 1: something to change something. And I would meet with them
Speaker 1: today and I would talk about Chicago first, to talk
Speaker 1: about some more things. We could eventually get into a
Speaker 1: lot of you know, elements, but we start there. Do
Speaker 1: you think he cares about black people? What do you think? Now?
Speaker 1: I'm not even gonna hit you with a question. Your question.
Speaker 1: I hate when people do that to me. You can
Speaker 1: have you though, are you that's fire because you used
Speaker 1: to George Bush quote against me get about black people
Speaker 1: because when you met with him, he hadn't even really been,
Speaker 1: you know, acting president. Now we've got a year into
Speaker 1: our belt. Nothing good has comp of Donald Trump being
Speaker 1: in the White House other than people starting to build
Speaker 1: their own like you talked about when you left Nike,
Speaker 1: because Nike wouldn't allow you to build your own. But
Speaker 1: I think Donald Trump is forcing us to build their own.
Speaker 1: It's a difference, Bro, I'm doing my landscape in the
Speaker 1: back of my crib, rich nigh right before we could
Speaker 1: put all the trees and add the beauty. You gotta
Speaker 1: break some things if you keep on getting just the beauty,
Speaker 1: just the perfect thing. Just the Obama walked through the hallway.
Speaker 1: It just see he don't even want his feet don't
Speaker 1: even touch the floor. He's just floating. Give a bird
Speaker 1: the handshake and all that. You know what I mean,
Speaker 1: You get all of these images. This is what it is.
Speaker 1: This is what I wanted to talk about, the idea
Speaker 1: of black perfection. Like a black person can't be imperfect
Speaker 1: in the public eye. That's a form of control. I'm
Speaker 1: here to show you imperfection. The beauty is in the imperfection,
Speaker 1: that this is possible. When I'm sitting there at the
Speaker 1: War Show and I'm like, man, this is the staple
Speaker 1: centers they play ball here. Y'all gonna sit through this
Speaker 1: and put this Let this mind manipulation tell you that
Speaker 1: you know someone you know. I'm ain't gonna put no energy.
Speaker 1: We're keeping a positive energy like that exactly what you're saying.
Speaker 1: That's what they used to saying about rock had to
Speaker 1: be perfect because if he wasn't perfect, and we probably
Speaker 1: would never get another one. You know, that's like the
Speaker 1: Virgil situation, right. You know, I feel like I feel
Speaker 1: like Barrock's brother a little bit. You remember when Barrock's
Speaker 1: brother was talking a little bit before up. You know,
Speaker 1: it's like because it's complex with Louis Vatton. You know,
Speaker 1: as me and Virgil went and infiltrated fashion, which is
Speaker 1: what we did, he started to learn about it. He started,
Speaker 1: I got this thing that I'm gonna tweet later, and
Speaker 1: I rode on my retreat. That was, um. You know,
Speaker 1: you look at this mountaintop and at the top of
Speaker 1: the mountain, it's all these tools for life. So you proceed,
Speaker 1: You said, I need these tools in order to win
Speaker 1: it life. So you proceed to climb up the mountain.
Speaker 1: But you you need tools in order to get up
Speaker 1: the the client you're collecting tools and stuff. By the
Speaker 1: time you get to the top of the mountain, you
Speaker 1: got more tools than was at the top. And that's
Speaker 1: what I figured out about fashion. You know, I talked
Speaker 1: to Virgil for an hour. You know, I realized that
Speaker 1: the concept of luxury and all this is what did
Speaker 1: I love about Gucci? What did I love about Louis Vatan,
Speaker 1: I love tom Ford, I love the artist, and Gucci
Speaker 1: created a platform for the artist. I love Mark Jacobs
Speaker 1: and Louis Vatan created a platform for the artists. It's
Speaker 1: a battle that y'all don't know about. Francois Pino, Bernard Arno.
Speaker 1: Who those people are, Francois Pino, Is Balenciaga and Gucci. Okay, okay,
Speaker 1: Binararno is the richest person in fashion. This is the
Speaker 1: head of the LVMH group. Like I've been to his
Speaker 1: house before. I've shaken hands to do a deal before
Speaker 1: with this man, and he's one of my idols, just
Speaker 1: like jay Z. He's called you know as he made
Speaker 1: culture before culture there was culture because he set the
Speaker 1: platform before there was an internet. To hire John Gagliano
Speaker 1: from Saint Martin's one of Louis Wilson students, hire Mark Jacobs.
Speaker 1: He had the vision. This man is a visionary, you know,
Speaker 1: he is one of my idols. I love Bernard. I
Speaker 1: feel as energy he loves me also. So this is
Speaker 1: how it works. They have two main, main main schools
Speaker 1: that have raised the fashion icons. Parsons in New York
Speaker 1: and Saint Martin's in London, but Nard I know, and
Speaker 1: Pino that's their recruiting, you know camp they go there.
Speaker 1: And now the breakthrough Virgil is now we have someone
Speaker 1: who's come from Donda. It's come from the school to
Speaker 1: Kanye West. And I hear people talk about all he
Speaker 1: didn't go to school. Oh, we went to school, all right.
Speaker 1: We hit to school. Were doing JPEGs in Japan and
Speaker 1: we were we were making photoshops so much and not
Speaker 1: making clothes that we we started just joking about the JPEGs,
Speaker 1: like did you shrink my jpeg? Did you? Did you?
Speaker 1: Did you die my jpeg? And ship we because we
Speaker 1: couldn't figure out how to actually make the clothes, so
Speaker 1: we just do it in photoshop. And Virgil became the
Speaker 1: fastest photoshop artist that I've ever met in my life.
Speaker 1: We'd be sitting in a you know, you know, right
Speaker 1: before we went to Findy, you know, just photoshopping things
Speaker 1: we en't during defending. But we ain't do shit, bro,
Speaker 1: We ain't get to do nothing. Man. I was just
Speaker 1: happy to have a cart. Did it upset you because
Speaker 1: you said you have mixed emotions with Virgil? Got the
Speaker 1: got the job? Did it upset you because that's something
Speaker 1: that you wanted, Like you was verbal about wanting it
Speaker 1: on one of these fashion houses and being able to
Speaker 1: create for Louis Baton, a Gucci. What's the thing we
Speaker 1: said about, you know, the tools at the top of
Speaker 1: the mountain. You know, in the process you gain all
Speaker 1: the tools. It's the journey, and that journey you gain
Speaker 1: everything you need. Now we got factories, we've it's you know,
Speaker 1: there is some we talk about validation, need or not
Speaker 1: need for validation. There is some validation and the fact that, um,
Speaker 1: someone that I came up with is now the head
Speaker 1: of Louis Baton, you know, And I said, you know, honestly,
Speaker 1: you know that's um, that was a slight. I shouldn't
Speaker 1: have worded like that. Virgilous the head of men'swear. Nicholas
Speaker 1: gascar is the head of women's weear, but our no,
Speaker 1: it's the head. So I just want a word it
Speaker 1: straight straight up, because every time we stay head, it's
Speaker 1: like a little bit of a slight to Nicholas, and
Speaker 1: Nicholas is the god, like maybe the best top top
Speaker 1: number one designer in the world. Did Virgil call you
Speaker 1: before he took the job, because because because that was
Speaker 1: something that you wanted. Did he call you, like, yo,
Speaker 1: let me at least consult with yea, asking if there's
Speaker 1: something I should do? Or did you hear about it
Speaker 1: on the internet like the rest of us. No, he
Speaker 1: made the call two minutes before hit dinner. But wow,
Speaker 1: But so you didn't know about the meetings or the
Speaker 1: stuff that was happening beforehand. No. No, when we I
Speaker 1: was in the I was in Berlin with Rocky and
Speaker 1: he told me, He's like, you know, we're looking at
Speaker 1: I'm looking at Bluis Vutan, I'm looking at Versachi like
Speaker 1: he you know, you know, like yeah, I'm wow, you
Speaker 1: know what I mean. So it's all like the fact
Speaker 1: that he had to work with me for ten years.
Speaker 1: It's like my reputation is kind of like Devil Wears
Speaker 1: product or something like that. So people are mindful in
Speaker 1: the way that they give me information too. So he
Speaker 1: he didn't, He didn't. He was like, I'm going to move.
Speaker 1: He's like, Avasachi got this. I got to kind of
Speaker 1: laid it out. Then I showed him the season six campaign.
Speaker 1: I showed him Paris Hilton and this and that. It's
Speaker 1: like we're about to drop this and we was doing
Speaker 1: musical Rocky. But he knew he's going to leave Banton
Speaker 1: at that time because he did System magazine. System Magazine
Speaker 1: is an LVMH magazine, and whenever they're about to prep up,
Speaker 1: you know, a new talent, they put him on System
Speaker 1: Magazine just to kind of put it in the ethos. Yeah,
Speaker 1: you know, this is who we're gonna you know, we're
Speaker 1: gonna put here. Um as far as getting the job
Speaker 1: or taking the job or is it cool? Yeah, bro,
Speaker 1: like it's a cool job to have. They got that platform,
Speaker 1: they got thousands of stores, they got you know resources.
Speaker 1: You know, I've met with ERMZ you know, uh maybe
Speaker 1: a year and a half prior to that, I met
Speaker 1: with banar Or. No. We had to deal, you know,
Speaker 1: on the table that we shook on. I did some
Speaker 1: performances that they museum, and then three months later the
Speaker 1: deal got dropped at the board. And that that set
Speaker 1: me back in apparel a bit when that happened, because
Speaker 1: in order for me to even negotiate the deal, just
Speaker 1: after I did Season one with Adidas, I had to
Speaker 1: go to Adidas and say, Okay, I know we had
Speaker 1: the best fashion show all this, but Louis Vatton is
Speaker 1: gonna back you know Yeasy in the Kanye West company,
Speaker 1: and these guys are masters of clothes, so I need
Speaker 1: you to ademnify the pail. I got to paperwork on it,
Speaker 1: and Adidas say like, all right, okay, cool, We're cool.
Speaker 1: We just do to choose. So if you know this,
Speaker 1: ever since then, there's never been Adidas Yeasy clothing. So
Speaker 1: when I did so, this happened right after the fashion
Speaker 1: show in February. I met Ubanara No in February. We
Speaker 1: shook our hands on the deal and then you know,
Speaker 1: his son called me and they said, you know, it's
Speaker 1: dropped at the board. We don't think it's going to
Speaker 1: be profitable before we run out of money. They only
Speaker 1: wanted to, you know, invest thirty million into it. You
Speaker 1: need to invest at least one hundred million when you're
Speaker 1: making a new brand, only thirty millions. I know that
Speaker 1: was a stunt at the lebrity talking to um, but
Speaker 1: people need to get higher ceilings, and shit, we got
Speaker 1: to talk with the ceiling. This is diddy talk, you
Speaker 1: know what I mean, This is what Calibi talking about.
Speaker 1: This is that you know. So when they pulled on
Speaker 1: the deals. I went into season two, we didn't have
Speaker 1: any production partner in the collection ever went to market
Speaker 1: the first collection when Thedidas had lineups, and there was
Speaker 1: nothing to fall back on on the second collection due
Speaker 1: to that negotiation. So the hurtful part of it was
Speaker 1: that's why okay, that makes sense, that's why you never
Speaker 1: seen no clod. So the hurtful part was they agreed
Speaker 1: to support my clothing and guess who was one of
Speaker 1: my designers, Virgil. Then they didn't do the deal, and
Speaker 1: where didn't have anything to do? Would you say Virgil
Speaker 1: didn't have anything to do technically? Yeah, I mean he
Speaker 1: was doing all flight but um, you know, at that
Speaker 1: time we had our designers for Virgil Don Jerry fear God,
Speaker 1: Demna demla Is ahead of Laiaga. Demna was in the apartment.
Speaker 1: It's me, Virgil Jerry in this apartment one by one
Speaker 1: making season one. I wore this big sweatshirt vet my sweatshirt.
Speaker 1: I remember, you know something people say vetterment right and
Speaker 1: then oh, you know, shortly after it's not because I
Speaker 1: want a sweatshirt either. But shortly after Dimna went to
Speaker 1: Blanciaga and now Virgils you know, how Louis va tom
Speaker 1: So transitions in life. You know, as a as a
Speaker 1: business owner, these things are hurtful, you know when you
Speaker 1: have like you you're working with a talent like Demna,
Speaker 1: You're working with a talent like Virgil, and you know,
Speaker 1: somebody comes through and says, Bam, I'm gonna take Virgil,
Speaker 1: I'm gonna take culture. Explain to me because I don't
Speaker 1: know nothing about fashion. Yeah, so why would Virgil leave
Speaker 1: a brand that seems to be successful off White? It
Speaker 1: seems to be growing. Yeah, you know what I mean?
Speaker 1: Why would you leave that brand to go work for
Speaker 1: a Louis Vuitton, a brand that's already established? Like, why
Speaker 1: wouldn't you pull your resources and try to make off
Speaker 1: White that next high end luxury brand? Because off White
Speaker 1: has five ten stories, Thluiver times two thousand stores. It's
Speaker 1: like taking the job as a president. You know, you
Speaker 1: know Trump, you see Trump's name on all type of buildings,
Speaker 1: but he still took the job as president. You have
Speaker 1: like you know, there's conversations about a creative director role
Speaker 1: for me at Adidas. It's like, okay, I got my brand?
Speaker 1: Is this billion dollars brand's unicorn company's growing. But to
Speaker 1: be able to go and be able to direct Adidas
Speaker 1: at all those stores is a you know, it's another conversation.
Speaker 1: I'd be you know, I'd be open to the conversation
Speaker 1: of taking a job like that. But how did that
Speaker 1: help Chicago though? Because, like you said, you become president,
Speaker 1: so now you over two thousand stores as opposed the
Speaker 1: focusing on this one. Does that help off white girl? Any? Hell? Yeah?
Speaker 1: Christ Off White went up soon as he went to
Speaker 1: Louis Batton. OK. Yeah, not the price with the value
Speaker 1: of it, the validation of it, because Louis Baton, Louis
Speaker 1: Vuttan is the you know, Erman's is really the top
Speaker 1: luxury house. When they call luxury houses like anybody knows
Speaker 1: about luxury anybody Bernard will say Erma is the top
Speaker 1: luxury house. Family owned all that. Why do we only
Speaker 1: need validation from white people, all rich people? Because our
Speaker 1: cape got taken away when he was three years old.
Speaker 1: We're broken, We're in the simulation. We want our BMW,
Speaker 1: we want our house that we want to pay all
Speaker 1: our money for the house. We want to buy this
Speaker 1: dress for our wife. We want to do this. We
Speaker 1: want to get our kids in school, we want. We
Speaker 1: want this, you know, this championship trophy, we want this jewelry,
Speaker 1: We want all these different things. Like people, we not
Speaker 1: monks were in the simulation. We end it. You know
Speaker 1: what I'm saying. I can't talk nobody out of wearing Groucci.
Speaker 1: And you know this is me. I had to come
Speaker 1: out to the other side of the hospital and you know,
Speaker 1: have like a Russell sweatshirt on or something like that.
Speaker 1: It's me, like people be calling me like homeless all
Speaker 1: the time, but like this is my confidence where I
Speaker 1: don't wear branding like that and put words but like
Speaker 1: absomnia too, so I can. But everyone like they have
Speaker 1: to have that confidence. Like when I see when I
Speaker 1: see branding, I see insecurity, you know, I see and
Speaker 1: I see people buying you know, buying security, you know,
Speaker 1: buying get back through a brand, you know, protection of badge.
Speaker 1: Don't don't mess with me in high school, I guess supremot,
Speaker 1: you know, the just to put the agenda for a
Speaker 1: second of easy and of what we're doing out is
Speaker 1: our mission and what we fought for is to be
Speaker 1: able to take the best talents in the world and
Speaker 1: you know land that price point which we haven't done yet.
Speaker 1: But that's what's interesting about this interview. I like you
Speaker 1: get to see the steps. You know, it's like when
Speaker 1: you see early Jeff Bezos, you know he gona be
Speaker 1: Jeff Bezos. Oh, it's just like he's standing from a warehouse.
Speaker 1: But we're not interested in the concept of high fashion.
Speaker 1: You know, the concept of luxury. I'm changing the idea
Speaker 1: of luxury. I think luxury is space. I think luxury
Speaker 1: is time is a luxury. Friends are a luxury. Getting
Speaker 1: your vision out as a luxury. The ability to afford
Speaker 1: something is the luxury. Not to not able to afford it,
Speaker 1: to go in and be like, oh I can afford this,
Speaker 1: that's the luxury. That's the yea. Everybody fell in love
Speaker 1: with them that Yeah, who was so human? They ain't
Speaker 1: who cared about things bigger than brands. You know, like
Speaker 1: you talking about family and now here you talking about friends,
Speaker 1: here you talking about time. Those are something we all have.
Speaker 1: Those are valuables that we all possessed, regardless of you know,
Speaker 1: what our finances are. Yeah, and that's the thing that
Speaker 1: we had to crack the code. The reason why we
Speaker 1: went into fashion wasn't to stay there or be there
Speaker 1: or just do you know who high priced stuff. It
Speaker 1: was actually to take the incredible HSP highly sensitive people
Speaker 1: that usually end up in a fashion house and bring
Speaker 1: them to someplace where they could consistently connect with the public.
Speaker 1: Easy eventually will be, you know, closer to like a
Speaker 1: relief company if there's like a disaster. We're gonna dress
Speaker 1: you know, We're gonna bring clothes and water. You know,
Speaker 1: the same design perspective that can sell a three hundred
Speaker 1: dollars T shirt. We're just gonna give it. And eventually
Speaker 1: that's who will be. You'll look up five ten years
Speaker 1: from now and Easy will be the biggest service provider
Speaker 1: of apparel. And one by one, every year, we're gonna
Speaker 1: take one, two, three, ten people that would have normally
Speaker 1: ended up in the fashion house, would have went to Nike,
Speaker 1: would have went other places, and we're going to Calabasas.
Speaker 1: We're building factories as dope, you know, as dope. You know,
Speaker 1: I'm sitting there listening to you're talking. You know, I
Speaker 1: feel like Kanye from four years ago would have taken
Speaker 1: a job at the fashion house. I don't feel like
Speaker 1: the Kanye I'm talking to right now would take that job.
Speaker 1: At the fashion house. I am in too good of
Speaker 1: a position to take a job where I have to
Speaker 1: be away for my wife and my son and my daughters.
Speaker 1: That just don't make no sense. For what family is
Speaker 1: your most important currency. I got a cousin that the
Speaker 1: Florida I flew out here. I'm trying to get as
Speaker 1: much family as close to me as possible. That's one
Speaker 1: of the reasons why Kim won't end up in a hospital.
Speaker 1: She had a family close. Do you feel like you're
Speaker 1: in a position to change things now with y'all, like
Speaker 1: really change things? I always was, you know, it's my
Speaker 1: place in the universe. I've just been distracted. I've been
Speaker 1: distracted and manipulated, and I allow things that you know,
Speaker 1: my Mama made me to never be manipulated and gangstered
Speaker 1: and pimped and all that type of ship. But somehow,
Speaker 1: stepping into the music industry, it happened, you know, Like,
Speaker 1: the music industry is set up for you to have
Speaker 1: just enough money to afford a car, pay for your kids,
Speaker 1: a house, and be on tour for the rest of
Speaker 1: your life till you die. It ain't set up for
Speaker 1: you to literally go buy an album Island like feel Knight,
Speaker 1: it ain't set up for the artists to win. It's
Speaker 1: like boxing. You know, more, more people end up retarded
Speaker 1: than rich. Do you feel like when you was in
Speaker 1: debt did contribute to your lack of us Nah? I'm
Speaker 1: glad that you said that because that lets me. That
Speaker 1: makes me think, like the answer, money is what made
Speaker 1: him feel confident. Nah. That's why I tweeted that because
Speaker 1: I knew I had to power. That's why I tweeted
Speaker 1: Mark Duckerberg and I tweeted the debt. The reason I
Speaker 1: tweeted to Mark Zuckerberg's because he wanted to meet with me,
Speaker 1: and my hung out with him a few times and
Speaker 1: I got respect for him. And but when I was
Speaker 1: talking about my ideas, there was really like not a
Speaker 1: lot of follow up to that. And I always see
Speaker 1: these um these guys they'll go and support a guy
Speaker 1: that's got like one idea that they can capitalize off of.
Speaker 1: And then you get a guy that's proven and like
Speaker 1: done the impossible in every single field he's ever put
Speaker 1: his mind to. And I'm like, yo, help me get
Speaker 1: a valuation right for my company, and it would be
Speaker 1: people who know how to do that, and I'm hanging
Speaker 1: with them, right and they don't show me how to
Speaker 1: do that, and it's like, why are you keeping me misinformed?
Speaker 1: I felt like learning the valuation of just even the
Speaker 1: company and what I built was like a slave getting
Speaker 1: a social Security number. It's like, I got my rights.
Speaker 1: I know I'm worth this much. And everyone in Hollywood
Speaker 1: knows exactly who Yay is. Every agent, anybody they know
Speaker 1: Yay is Jay in the hospital, on stage, rant, in debt,
Speaker 1: or with a billion dollar company. Like the spirit is
Speaker 1: here and the only thing that can hold me back
Speaker 1: is a lack of information. But information is harder define,
Speaker 1: and you think it's secret codes. Like even when jay
Speaker 1: Z gave a little bit of codes on four there's
Speaker 1: people I know that tweeted or we're texting each other
Speaker 1: like he's giving colds away, he's giving information. But it's like, yo,
Speaker 1: this is open source. Yeah. I like. I like because
Speaker 1: because Elon Musk could be like, yo, here's all my plans,
Speaker 1: but he's the only one that could pull it off.
Speaker 1: I just you know, we work hard on that color
Speaker 1: pale right now. I just tweeted it today, like yo,
Speaker 1: because it's fire. You know what I'm saying? I'm sure
Speaker 1: there's gonna be some people that copy it one by one.
Speaker 1: That's great the ideas out there. You're hanging out with
Speaker 1: people and you're saying, I want to do all these things,
Speaker 1: and it's just not taking you seriously and it keeps
Speaker 1: you in a position to be you know, managed in
Speaker 1: a way. So my my last and final manager of
Speaker 1: Scooter Braun right, I've had every manager ge Robertson, Jay
Speaker 1: Brown is easy. You just parted. What was that about?
Speaker 1: I just can't be managed? But was dope about Scooter though,
Speaker 1: at the end of the day, for you really gotta
Speaker 1: give him his props. Is one thing is he has
Speaker 1: his parents, adopted a black child. His brother's black. So
Speaker 1: this is a Jewish guy who understands business, understands all this,
Speaker 1: but also understands how to communicate, you know, on a
Speaker 1: personal level or a black person, like on a brother level.
Speaker 1: So me and Scooter would just getting on the phone
Speaker 1: and we talked to me for hours, and that information
Speaker 1: meant everything. He was mine, let me third person. He
Speaker 1: was Kanye West, Gateway drug to business. Because before that
Speaker 1: it was always like you were artists, you were a rapper.
Speaker 1: We love you for the music. Hey, don't don't think
Speaker 1: about nothing, don't think about business, blah blah blah blah blah.
Speaker 1: And I would just you know the thing we was
Speaker 1: talking about before when we talk about Obama and Trump
Speaker 1: in then other room we talk about trust me like that,
Speaker 1: I would just trust trust the manager, Let them do everything,
Speaker 1: them handle everything, let them handle you know, let them
Speaker 1: hire your business manager or this and that, and you
Speaker 1: get a manager or manager, home manager, and then it
Speaker 1: becomes one big racket where it's like the tour guy
Speaker 1: is talking to the label guy is talking to the manager,
Speaker 1: is talking to the guy that sold you the house,
Speaker 1: and talk to you baba. And then you're just trapped.
Speaker 1: You don't you're not in control of your life anymore.
Speaker 1: And at that point you could be easily manipulated. You know,
Speaker 1: a whole album with Paul McCartney can end up becoming
Speaker 1: a single for Rihanna because you know, you're trapped in
Speaker 1: this box of the idea of your perception music industry
Speaker 1: this at that. So the funny thing I was I
Speaker 1: knew I wanted to say in this situation is like
Speaker 1: Scooter Braun is Kanye West, Kanye West gateway drug to
Speaker 1: business and maybe the death of the music industry as
Speaker 1: we know it. Really, Yeah, why because artists are businesses.
Speaker 1: We're not just artists. Artists shouldn't have managers, Artists should
Speaker 1: have CEOs. That's how I feel. I didn't put no
Speaker 1: thought on that. You know, it's like you know says
Speaker 1: a lot of people is going to have a problem
Speaker 1: with that statement. I'm gonna say how I feel. So
Speaker 1: that means, Okay, how many kids are going to business
Speaker 1: school right now? Warden Harvard. You think they like, let's sake,
Speaker 1: somebody Travis Scott, right, they probably listened to his music.
Speaker 1: Oozy somebody like that? Right? How many Uzi's and Travis
Speaker 1: Scott's are there? And how many business people are there? Right,
Speaker 1: I'm gonna think it's probably less Travis Scotts and Oozies
Speaker 1: than there are business people. So when you think of
Speaker 1: Travis Scott would deserve the same amount of employees as
Speaker 1: Dropbox in his first year. So that's some day he
Speaker 1: can ipo for ten billion, like my friend Drew just
Speaker 1: did with Dropbox, but with artistry an artist. What's the
Speaker 1: point where you ipl everyone want to talk to me
Speaker 1: about getting out? I'm out this to get out yeah,
Speaker 1: we didn't. That was a three sixty dealt The three
Speaker 1: sixty deal kind of like the label saying we recognize
Speaker 1: artists as a business. Now now we want a piece
Speaker 1: of all of their business. Three sixty deal make me
Speaker 1: think that Harriet Tubman on a twenty dollars bill. It's
Speaker 1: still some old slave ship. So all this is yours? Yeah, yes, sir,
Speaker 1: And what you're gonna do with it? I'm gonna build
Speaker 1: five properties, So it's my first community. I'm getting into development.
Speaker 1: I'm super Anybody has ever been to any of my
Speaker 1: cribs knows I'm super into developing homes. It's just the
Speaker 1: next frontier for me to develop. So that's why you
Speaker 1: design it boots and ships so you can do the hiking.
Speaker 1: Yeah see you got you got the Nikes. Shit have
Speaker 1: the easy boots and Nike's just trashed for hiking. But listen,
Speaker 1: it's crazy though, because you got this whole plan, three
Speaker 1: hundred acres of land, you want to build a community
Speaker 1: on it. Why does the Kanye West don't need nobody?
Speaker 1: So that goes back to what we were talking about
Speaker 1: with with Trump. You don't need to meet with Trump.
Speaker 1: You you yay, you didn't had a state of your
Speaker 1: own ship. Yeah, I feel that, you know. But I
Speaker 1: love real change. I love, you know, challenging the norm.
Speaker 1: I love. I love people who don't love them. I
Speaker 1: love the fact that they're speaking up and everybody's just
Speaker 1: giving their opinions, everybody's expressing themselves. I love. I love
Speaker 1: that I've been waiting. I's like I've been waiting for
Speaker 1: this moment in time. It's just like a yay moment
Speaker 1: in time and stuff when people are you know, my
Speaker 1: dad is an activist, and you know, my my mom's activists,
Speaker 1: who's in marches and stuff. I feel like that energy
Speaker 1: all coming to a head. You know. Now, I refused
Speaker 1: to believe that your mother would love Donald Trump. Hmm,
Speaker 1: I got have difference opinion from my mom. True. True,
Speaker 1: But what about when you see like, because you know,
Speaker 1: it's people that's watching this right now and they're like, yo,
Speaker 1: you know Donald Trump is getting our family deported, and
Speaker 1: you know, like especially you right now, you've got this
Speaker 1: whole economic empowerment thing going on, but you got a
Speaker 1: guy like him who's clearly trying to marginalize and oppress
Speaker 1: people people that look like you. You don't want to
Speaker 1: see people like you come up. Can you still love
Speaker 1: a person like that? Hm? I don't. I don't have
Speaker 1: all the answers that a celebrity is supposed to have,
Speaker 1: but I could tell you that when he was running,
Speaker 1: it's like I felt something. It's like the fact that
Speaker 1: he won, it's like it proved something. It proved that
Speaker 1: anything is possible in America, that Donald Trump could be
Speaker 1: president of America. I'm not talking about, you know, what
Speaker 1: he's done since he's been in office, but the fact
Speaker 1: that he was able to do it. Like, remember I
Speaker 1: said I was going to run for president. I had
Speaker 1: people that was close to me, friends of mine, like
Speaker 1: making jokes, making memes, talking shit, And now it's like, oh,
Speaker 1: that was proven that that could have happened. Yeah, So
Speaker 1: I get what you're saying. I felt the non conventional,
Speaker 1: you know what I mean, even from what we're doing
Speaker 1: in fashion, to me being a kid with the pink polos,
Speaker 1: to me being outspoken, to me being ostracized because the
Speaker 1: de Tailor Swift thing or the George Bush thing, or
Speaker 1: you know who I'm dating, who I'm marrying, and I'm
Speaker 1: talking about like all of this is like an outsider thing.
Speaker 1: You know. So when I see an outsider infiltrate, I
Speaker 1: connect with that. So maybe that's what you like the idea, Yeah,
Speaker 1: not necessarily the idea of Donald Trump with the idea
Speaker 1: of an outside of infiltrating. Yeah, I like that. It
Speaker 1: showed you that anything it's possible, shows you that it
Speaker 1: doesn't even like Virgil working at Louis Vuitton, Trump being
Speaker 1: in office, it's a time for the unconventional. I'm very
Speaker 1: I'm not a traditional thinker. I'm a nonconformist, you know.
Speaker 1: So that relates to the nonconformist part of me now,
Speaker 1: you know. But I'm also I'm a producer. I like
Speaker 1: to segue things. I like to take otis chop it
Speaker 1: up through it like this. So what's the a version.
Speaker 1: The a version of be the Trump campaign and maybe
Speaker 1: the Bernie Sanders principles. That would be my mix and stuff.
Speaker 1: But I think both had you know, you know, I
Speaker 1: needed you know, I hit the glass ceiling. Have you
Speaker 1: ever seen a bird flying to a window. They don't
Speaker 1: know it's glass. That was me when I hit that hospital.
Speaker 1: That was a bird flying into the window. And you
Speaker 1: know I could have, you know, not made it out
Speaker 1: of it. But I survived and ship. But it's um
Speaker 1: are you scared of that happening again? You haven't a
Speaker 1: breakdown or breakthrough? Nah? Nah, I'm happy it happened. I'm
Speaker 1: happy to see have gone to the other side and back.
Speaker 1: You know, there's some things when it happened. I do
Speaker 1: want to I want to speak on I want to
Speaker 1: point out the moment when you're in the hospital bed
Speaker 1: and you're next to your friend and you tell them
Speaker 1: don't let this person leave my side, and they put
Speaker 1: you inside of an elevator and take all your friends
Speaker 1: away from you. That was the scariest moment of my life.
Speaker 1: Was gonna drug you or kill you. I was gonna
Speaker 1: get killed. And you know, my wife wasn't in town.
Speaker 1: So I told my boy Don and my boy's ky like,
Speaker 1: don't leave my side until my wife gets here. And
Speaker 1: they have this moment where they're forced to leave your side.
Speaker 1: That's something that has to change, you know. It's like
Speaker 1: if a pregnant woman is, you know, delivering a baby,
Speaker 1: guarantee whoever the people, her sisters, the dad, they get
Speaker 1: to stay next to them till the baby is delivered.
Speaker 1: Not leave my wife in that situation. Yeah, HSP you
Speaker 1: you are paranoid to everything. You don't believe nothing. You
Speaker 1: just seeing through all of the simulation. Everybody's phony, everybody's
Speaker 1: an actor, all the ship and then they make your friends,
Speaker 1: the only people you believe in, leave your side. I
Speaker 1: can't express to you like how traumatizing that moment is.
Speaker 1: And then you waked up. Drugg the fuck out? Did they?
Speaker 1: So they put you on medication? Yeah? Are you still
Speaker 1: on any now? Almost? Definitely what they got you on.
Speaker 1: I ain't gonna say does the medication help? You don't?
Speaker 1: I mean, you don't want to tell us what it is,
Speaker 1: but does it help? Um? It's an imperfect solution. You
Speaker 1: can just calm me down, But there's a lot of
Speaker 1: ways to calm down, do we I don't want calm ye? Yeah?
Speaker 1: Well you the calm ya for v Y. You know,
Speaker 1: don't you feel like that ticked a little bit of
Speaker 1: your superpower away? Though? All this power and being controlled
Speaker 1: and calm you know, X men really understanding how to
Speaker 1: really use his uh power or Superman? That's me. This
Speaker 1: is like, what's the Kryptonite has gone? I got the
Speaker 1: confidence everything is possible. Building Acres Wraps Stadium tours, designs,
Speaker 1: companies ideas to ignite the next generations, like everything is possible,
Speaker 1: you know, And I'm just a vessel and that's my
Speaker 1: job in the universe as a servant to the world.
Speaker 1: I have to be me. I'm not as good as
Speaker 1: a servant if I'm not. Yay you are ya though
Speaker 1: almost definitely you know you are yea. And I mean
Speaker 1: like that's why I kept asking, like, well, first, let's
Speaker 1: talking about something that I know. It's therapeutic for your music. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I'm looking at all of this, this wild outdoors, this wilderness.
Speaker 1: Is that why you went to Waywomen? Yeah, you know
Speaker 1: for what I'm doing And I played you some of
Speaker 1: the music and you see where I'm going. Yeah, I
Speaker 1: want to create music that's therapeutic, you know, like I
Speaker 1: feel real friends, was in the in the territory of
Speaker 1: what we're creating. Do you feel like the lifestyle out
Speaker 1: of your your your wife, the mother in law, like
Speaker 1: that whole family. Do you think that plays a role
Speaker 1: and how you were feeling like did it get to
Speaker 1: be too much because you're already a superstar, but then
Speaker 1: you take that superstar element and add it and it
Speaker 1: is just like when do you have privacy. It seemed
Speaker 1: like paparazzi is always around. Yeah, paparazzi. It can't stress
Speaker 1: you out, But it's all in the inner piece that
Speaker 1: you can find. You said you don't trust people. Do
Speaker 1: you trust? Do you trust your in laws? Because it
Speaker 1: seem you know, we look at the world and it
Speaker 1: seems like everything is the storyline. Do you trust that
Speaker 1: they won't turn your life and what you're going through
Speaker 1: to a storyline? Ah, and you know, of course I'm
Speaker 1: gonna give you a slick answer on that because you
Speaker 1: gotta go home, but your fast. But uh like, right now,
Speaker 1: we're writing part of the story just by even doing
Speaker 1: this and speaking. I like the way that my wife
Speaker 1: communicates it. Documents things, you know, as an artist, you know,
Speaker 1: I think it's good to document ourselves, document are now
Speaker 1: see if we could recognize ourselves again in a different light,
Speaker 1: in a different life, what would um? What would what
Speaker 1: would college drop out? Kanye? He was looking at pictures
Speaker 1: of Kanye, Now what would he say? I think he'd
Speaker 1: be happy, satisfied, and he would believe it. You know
Speaker 1: how people saying I wouldn't believe it. I always believed.
Speaker 1: I always know what it is. You know this documentation
Speaker 1: right now, this is just the age forty. This is
Speaker 1: a version of a college drop out. Yeah, we're standing
Speaker 1: on my first property. Yeah, so I'm gonna be one
Speaker 1: of the biggest real estate developers of all time. Like
Speaker 1: some what Howard Hughes was to aircraft and what Henry
Speaker 1: Ford was to cars, and just the relationships that I
Speaker 1: have with architects, my understanding of like space and sacred proportions.
Speaker 1: Just this vibe, this new vibe, this new energy. Like
Speaker 1: I'm tired of the mc mansion's all the Spanish roof
Speaker 1: homes and stuff like that, like that shit whack bro,
Speaker 1: Like everybody house whack. It's trash bro. I don't go
Speaker 1: to except for lessons like a Howard back In or something.
Speaker 1: It's like the one of the few architects that I
Speaker 1: liked their homes. I was gonna ask you, what's next,
Speaker 1: because yeah, he's always predicted what he was going to be.
Speaker 1: So that's what that's that's the goal. Yeah, We're going
Speaker 1: to develop cities.