Kanye West Rants About the Grammys + How Steve Jobs’ Death Allowed Him to Live
If there's one thing Kanye West loves to do, it's talk about Kanye West. Which, if you let him (or even if you don't), he will do at length. Because as God told his second son, Yeezus, "It's cool, dude. You're the branches that feed the people."
So in a very long New York Times interview to promote his new album, Kanye West opened up about being the best Grammy winner ever, not understanding the definition of the word "statistic," and feeling that Steve Jobs died so that Kanye could flourish.
No, really.
We start our tour of crazy with Kanye's love-hate relationship with the Grammys, which he feels are totally racist. As he (wrongly) lamented:
"I don’t know if this is statistically right, but I’m assuming I have the most Grammys of anyone my age, but I haven’t won one against a white person. But the thing is, I don’t care about the Grammys; I just would like for the statistics to be more accurate."
Fact: Kanye West has beaten out white people for Grammys. In fact, when he won his first Grammy in 2005, he bested the Beastie Boys (not just one but three white dudes) for Best Rap Album.
He also reminisced about the time he almost pulled a Kanye again (which he claims, "led me to complete awesomeness at all times") when Justin Timberlake lost Album of the Year to the Dixie Chicks in 2007.
"I remember when both Gnarls Barkley and Justin lost for Album of the Year, and I looked at Justin, and I was like: 'Do you want me to go onstage for you? You know, do you want me to fight?'
"I am so credible and so influential and so relevant that I will change things ... That thing is more fair because I was there."
If your eyes haven't rolled right out of your head yet, hang on -- because Kanye also compared himself to late Apple co-founder Steve Jobs, going so far as to claim that he's the new Steve Jobs.
In his own third-person words:
"I think what Kanye West is going to mean is something similar to what Steve Jobs means. I am undoubtedly, you know, Steve of Internet, downtown, fashion, culture. Period. By a long jump. I honestly feel that because Steve has passed, you know, it’s like when Biggie passed and Jay-Z was allowed to become Jay-Z."
To paraphrase: now that Steve Jobs is dead, Kanye West can truly live.
Since there are no appropriate words to respond to that, we leave you with perhaps the most narcissistic thing we've ever heard to close things out.
As Kanye West proclaimed of Kanye West, "I got the answers. I understand culture. I am the nucleus."