Kanye West Jimmy Kimmel Interview
[Kanye]
It’s snobbery. And I’m not into all that snobbery. Because, you know what? We have the loudest voice, we have the loudest communication, and all we want to do is make awesome stuff. All we want is a real shot. Not: OK, I’m a celebrity, so that means my line has to cost ten dollars a t-shirt. No, I understand about quality. I understand about fabrics. I spent ten thousand hours at this. I’ve dedicated my life to this. And a lot of people say, “OK, you have to do music.” I’m gonna keep doing music, but what if people told me I couldn’t rap, what woulda happened? What if people told me I couldn’t perform. I’m only 36 years old; I have other goals and other things. And I’m gonna use my platform, every platform, to stand up and say, “I want to make something, I want to make the next Ralph Lauren.” That was the point of the Zane interview, to say, people don’t stand up to protect their dreams. People are too scared of getting, you know, spoofed in a way.
And the irony of it is, think about a creative person in school. When you picture them, you’re probably picturing them all the way in the back of the class sketching or maybe getting beat up, and I’m the one creative, and this is the reason why I did this, because creatives have gotten beat up my entire life, and there’s moments when I stood up to drug dealers in Chicago and said, “You can’t have my publishing. Come and kill me. Do whatever you’re gonna do, but you’re not going to bully me, you’re not gonna stop me, because my mother made me believe in myself.” No matter how many people tell me, “Stop believing in yourself! Stop seeing what you can do! Stop affirming what you’re gonna do and then completing that in real life.” That’s the improper way to do it. I refuse to follow those rules that society has set up and the way they control people with low self-esteem. With improper information, with branding, with marketing… I refuse to follow those rules.
It’s about truth, it’s about information, it’s about awesomeness, and the only luxury is time. The time you spend with your family, that’s the only luxury. So this concept of “luxury” is improper to me. You know, with Nike, with Apple, you remember there was phones that cost 4,000 dollars?! Somebody pull out a Vertu phone right now, you look ridiculous, but there’s people who still spend five-thousand dollars on this bag, ten-thousand dollars on this to say, “Oh, we’re better than you.” I mean, taste, culture, art, you know, just the quality of your life. This is what I’m here to do, so when I compare myself to Steve Jobs or Walt Disney, Howard Hughes, David Stern, Michelangelo, Da Vinci, Jesus of whatever it is, I’m saying, “These are my heroes. These are people I look up to. This is the type of impact I want to make on the earth.” If I can make this type of impact up to this point, what can I do, if you call Bob Iger and say, “Yo, give him a shot.” If you call Oprah and say, “Yo, back this kid. This kid, his parents were educators. He wants to educate. He wants to look at curriculums and say, ‘How do we simplify that?’”
Exactly what I did in music, I want to apply to product, I want to apply to education. This is what my company Donda is about. I could rap all I want, but without that Roc-a-Fella chain, and Damon giving me that Roc-a-Fella chain. I don’t care how beats I sold to whoever, I couldn’t have made it to the point to make “Jesus Walks.” And now, even as a celebrity, I’ve reached a ceiling. And the way paparazzi talk to me and my family is disrespectful, also. We bring something of joy to the world. When people hear my music they have a good time. And I should be respected as such when I walk down the street. Don’t ask me a question about something you say in a tabloid. Don’t try to antagonize me. Cause, you know what, it’s not safe for you in this zoo. Never think that I’m not from Chicago for one second. And think you can walk right up and disrespect me and my family constantly.
And people say, “Well, you signed up to be a celebrity, blah blah blah…” It’s like, you know what, and I understand paparazzi, you gotta get your money, it’s hard out here, but let’s have respect for each other. You do help me get money, paparazzi, you show people how fresh my outfit is, that helps me influence people.
Video from the Jimmy Kimmel show on ABC late night talk.
