While most folks can be forgiven for thinking that Summer 2014 will be defined by the World Cup in Brazil, or the carnage in Gaza, or the mess on America’s borders, or the crisis in the Ukraine, those of us who never stopped watching the throne know that the biggest event of the summer is… Kayne West.
Or, more specifically, Kanye breaking his silence for his first major interview since his marriage to Kim Kardashian back in May.
That’s right: Kanye is back — in all his quotable glory — on the cover of this month’s GQ Magazine. And he doesn’t disappoint.
In a one-on-one interview Kanye elevates the cray-cray to truly epic heights, including a recap of his wedding speech, a meditation on celebrity and civil rights, why he’s a blowfish, not a shark and why Kim’s his dinosaur… or airplane… or something.
We’ve recapped the highlights for your reading pleasure below:
- On making new acquaintances:
“I hope we don’t see no paparazzi today… Because I’m still getting acquainted with these jogging pants I threw on. Like, ‘That’s not my statement!’ ”
- On taxonomy:
“I don’t have fangs. I’m a porcupine. I’m a blowfish. Like, I’m a—what’s the fish hat blows up? …Yeah. I’m a blowfish. I’m not a shark, I’m a blowfish. So that perfect example about me hitting my head, it’s like a blowfish. I wasn’t coming out of my house going to a paparazzi’s house to attack them. I’m defending my family in front of my own house. I’m defending my name as someone’s screaming something negative at me. That’s a blowfish. People have me pinned as a shark or a predator in some way, and in no way am I that. I wouldn’t want to hurt anyone. I want to defend people. I want to help people.”
- On remodeling the bar at his wedding:
“For the person that wrote that, were they involved with anything last year that was as culturally significant as the Yeezus tour or that album? They didn’t even talk there about the photographs, or the dress, or Andrea Bocelli singing, or the marble tables. They’re like: “It’s a gold toilet.” No. The bathrooms—that usually would be a porta-potty—were wrapped in a fabric that was neutral to match the fort. The bar was terrible, and the wedding planner didn’t approve it with me. I was having issues with this wedding planner the entire time on approvals, and I get there and they threw some weird plastic bar there. So the same materials that were used to cover the bathroom, we said, “Let’s just use that, because this is all we have to make the bar look better.” Which it did, in the end.”
- On the working man:
“And anyone knows that you cannot pick up tools yourself, because of—what are those rules about the workers? …Yeah, unions. You can’t do that. It’s illegal. That’s false.”
- On his wedding toast:
“And what I talked about in it was the idea of celebrity, and celebrities being treated like blacks were in the ’60s, having no rights, and the fact that people can slander your name. I said that in the toast. And I had to say this in a position where I, from the art world, am marrying Kim. And how we’re going to fight to raise the respect level for celebrities so that my daughter can live a more normal life. She didn’t choose to be a celebrity. But she is. So I’m going to fight to make sure she has a better life.”
- On boxing:
“Yeah. I’m sitting right here, it’s a fight. I’m fighting with the way I line my words up together and the way I place a sweater on top of a T-shirt. At this point, people know what’s up. People know I’m smart. And people know that, whether it’s SNL or Jimmy Kimmel, it’s a trend to take the piss out of celebrity—just as much of a trend as wearing a gray hoodie or driving a Prius.”
- On love, God and dinosaurs:
“Saying “Hey, I like Kim” isn’t as inspiring to people as us getting married. And anyone that’s in a relationship knows that in order to get to the point to get married and then to be married and to then carry on, it needs that work put into it. Right now, people look at it and it’s like, “Wow, that’s inspiring.” Meaning that love is infectious. You know, God is infectious—God flowing through us and us being little-baby creators and shit. But His energy and His love and what He wants us to have as people and the way He wants us to love each other, that is infectious. Like they said in Step Brothers: Never lose your dinosaur. This is the ultimate example of a person never losing his dinosaur. Meaning that even as I grew in cultural awareness and respect and was put higher in the class system in some way for being this musician, I never lost my dinosaur.”
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