http://www.vulture.com/2015/03/read-kanyes-full-oxford-university-lecture.html
OK, everyone please be completely quiet, because I can literally hear a whisper, and it’ll throw off my stream of consciousness, and when I get my stream of consciousness going that’s when I give the best, illest quotes. Literally, a whisper can throw it off.
My goal, if I was going to do art, fine art, would have been to become Picasso or greater.
I think one of the most important things to my ability to create so much in the past 30 years is my desire to play sports. I approach creativity like a sport, where if I have a drawing I react just like a jock: LOOK AT THE fukkING DRAWING RIGHT THERE YEAH!
We were taught to hide our black fingernail polish
and put our head down in the back of the class and not notice out of fear that someone might laugh at one of our ideas – that our idea could become a mockery or a failure in some way.
I was sitting with Steve McQueen, he shot the visuals for "All Day" two days ago, it’s completely different to the Brit awards.
So it doesn’t get taken out of context, I’m going to use the word ‘like.’ I’m not saying it is, I’m using it as a comparison. So people that want to say ‘Kanye goes to Oxford and tells everyone blah blah blah’. And I’m not telling you this. I’m telling you what I told Steve McQueen in private.
What I said was The Matrix is like the Bible of the post-information age.
I compared it like, when the hundred guys come at Neo, those are opinions, that’s perception, that’s tradition. Attacking people from every which angle possible. If you have a focus wide and master senseis like Laurence Fishburne and you have a squad behind you, you literally can put the world in slow motion.
It’s still February, right? (security guard shakes his head, everyone laughs).
By the way, I don’t know the days of the week. I just go to exactly when my appointment is.
We’d just look at each other and say, it’s still February. For the sheer mount of work that we were able to put into the world. Some of the stuff had been worked on for years coming, months coming. But nonetheless they came back to back to back to back. Answering every crazy interview question, blocking every shot, catching every rebound. Aside from the right I don’t have to give my opinion publicly about artists, I probably would have been batting 2000. I know that’s incorrect also.
I think that progression of mind with the advent of a human being named Drake (laughs, smirks, crowd laughs) you know, this idea of holding onto a number 1 spot. And then you get this guy that comes and blows out the water every No. 1 of any band ever. Be it me, or Paul McCartney [laughs].
I understand that I’m a servant. And with my voice, with my ability to build relationships with amazing people, speak to amazing people. Call Elon Musk out of the blue, or call Obama out of the blue … he calls the home phone, by the way.
With that, I have a responsibility to serve. Why do I say the Matrix is like the Bible? What is my definition of the Matrix? [he never answered this].
I work with an artist called Vanessa Beecroft, and she bought my daughter some toys.
I’d see toys that some people would buy for my daughter and I’d say this toy isn’t quality. I don’t want my daughter playing with this. There’s not enough love put into this, this is just manufactured with the will to sell, and not the will of inspiration.
In America people really do wear $3,000 shirts. For real. Here and in Stockholm people will be like ‘oh dude, it’s a $3000 shirt'
I’m assuming I’m probably wearing a $2,000 shirt but I got it for free from the designer so.
Time is the only luxury. It’s the only thing you can’t get back. If you lose your luggage – I’m not gonna say the obvious brand of luggage that I’d normally say because I’ve got a meeting with them soon
– if you lose your expensive luggage at the airport, you can get that back. You can’t get the time back.
People say it takes a village to raise a child. People ask me how my daughter is doing. She’s only doing good if your daughter’s doing good. We’re all one family.
We have the ability to approach our race like ants, or we have the ability to approach our race like crabs.
This is a generation that is far less racist – yes, small remnants remain of even thinking of calling something of a racial slur.
White people that listen to rap say ‘******’… in the privacy of their own home.
That idea [racism], has passed.We’ve had The Cosby Show, Obama’s president, Beyonce’s great … that’s passed. But there’s still something you’re taught every day, especially in the UK, and that’s division by class. Our main focus, in my opinion…Imagine a world with no war, and imagine if everyone’s main focus, more so than going out to a club, their main focus was to help someone else.
You know, Chris Rock called my album My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy … well, Chris Rock and everyone else at every single media publication called My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy the best album of the last 25 years. This only came through collaboration.
One of the most memorable things about MBDTF was Nicki Minaj
, and the fact that she kicked my ass, on my own song, on one of the best albums…the best album – I’m just saying what the critics said – of the last 25 years. The best album of the past 25 years that I spent a year and a half making, out there. I was exiled from my country, it was a personal exile, but exile. To come back and deliver my magnum opus of a work, and to be outshined … to be beat by a girl, basically.
This was necessary. I think it was one of the most important points of working on that album, was to not stop her from her moment because of how good she is. Just think of a comparison, if you think about why did it take so long for the new Yeezys to come out? Why did I have to leave one group and go to another group? Why did that group not want to speak to me? I think the Yeezys I was doing over there were comparable to that Nicki Minaj verse. Because these guys were like ‘we’re worrying about this shoe, we’re gonna put it on this celebrity’. And the head’s son would come and say ‘my favorite shoe is the Yeezy’. And it’s like ‘ahhh, I can’t hear about these YEEZYS anymore!’. Like everyone talking about Nicki’s verse, ‘I can’t hear about this verse anymore!’. It was gonna work for her anyway, but let’s just say that in some way in helped give her exposure. She was able to go on and become a successful, and fly, and run, and dream, and provide. And it was not locked because of my career.
One of my biggest Achilles heels has been my ego. And if I, Kanye West, the very person, can remove my ego, I think there’s hope for everyone.
People say I have a bad reputation. I think I’ve got the best reputation in the building. They want you to have a reputation of tucking your black nail polish into your pockets and sitting in the corner of the class, and not fighting for your ideas out of fear of being ridiculed.
That’s one of my favorite ones … to be called crazy.
Let’s have an NBC telethon moment, and say that beauty has been stolen from the people and is being sold back to them under the concept of luxury!
It’s illegal to not wear clothes, and also possibly too cold. That means someone is imposing an idea on you that should legally have to do! Clothing should be like food. There should never be a $5,000 sweater. You know what should cost $5,000? A car should be $5,000. And you know who should work on the car? The people that work on the $500,000 cars. All the best talent in the world needs to work for the people. And I am so fukking serious about this concept that I will stand in front of anyone and fight for it. Because I was 14 and middle class. I know what it felt like to not get what I have.
People say to me ‘you’re successful, what are you crying about?’. I’m crying about the people. I’m crying about their daughters. Our daughters, as one family. What good is it. What good is anything that everyone can’t have. Every ism. They think we’re done with racism. What about elitism, what about separatism, what about classism? That’s all.”
OK, everyone please be completely quiet, because I can literally hear a whisper, and it’ll throw off my stream of consciousness, and when I get my stream of consciousness going that’s when I give the best, illest quotes. Literally, a whisper can throw it off.
My goal, if I was going to do art, fine art, would have been to become Picasso or greater.
I think one of the most important things to my ability to create so much in the past 30 years is my desire to play sports. I approach creativity like a sport, where if I have a drawing I react just like a jock: LOOK AT THE fukkING DRAWING RIGHT THERE YEAH!
We were taught to hide our black fingernail polish
and put our head down in the back of the class and not notice out of fear that someone might laugh at one of our ideas – that our idea could become a mockery or a failure in some way.I was sitting with Steve McQueen, he shot the visuals for "All Day" two days ago, it’s completely different to the Brit awards.
So it doesn’t get taken out of context, I’m going to use the word ‘like.’ I’m not saying it is, I’m using it as a comparison. So people that want to say ‘Kanye goes to Oxford and tells everyone blah blah blah’. And I’m not telling you this. I’m telling you what I told Steve McQueen in private.
What I said was The Matrix is like the Bible of the post-information age.
I compared it like, when the hundred guys come at Neo, those are opinions, that’s perception, that’s tradition. Attacking people from every which angle possible. If you have a focus wide and master senseis like Laurence Fishburne and you have a squad behind you, you literally can put the world in slow motion.
It’s still February, right? (security guard shakes his head, everyone laughs).
By the way, I don’t know the days of the week. I just go to exactly when my appointment is.
We’d just look at each other and say, it’s still February. For the sheer mount of work that we were able to put into the world. Some of the stuff had been worked on for years coming, months coming. But nonetheless they came back to back to back to back. Answering every crazy interview question, blocking every shot, catching every rebound. Aside from the right I don’t have to give my opinion publicly about artists, I probably would have been batting 2000. I know that’s incorrect also.
I think that progression of mind with the advent of a human being named Drake (laughs, smirks, crowd laughs) you know, this idea of holding onto a number 1 spot. And then you get this guy that comes and blows out the water every No. 1 of any band ever. Be it me, or Paul McCartney [laughs].
I understand that I’m a servant. And with my voice, with my ability to build relationships with amazing people, speak to amazing people. Call Elon Musk out of the blue, or call Obama out of the blue … he calls the home phone, by the way.
With that, I have a responsibility to serve. Why do I say the Matrix is like the Bible? What is my definition of the Matrix? [he never answered this].
I work with an artist called Vanessa Beecroft, and she bought my daughter some toys.
I’d see toys that some people would buy for my daughter and I’d say this toy isn’t quality. I don’t want my daughter playing with this. There’s not enough love put into this, this is just manufactured with the will to sell, and not the will of inspiration.
In America people really do wear $3,000 shirts. For real. Here and in Stockholm people will be like ‘oh dude, it’s a $3000 shirt'
I’m assuming I’m probably wearing a $2,000 shirt but I got it for free from the designer so.
Time is the only luxury. It’s the only thing you can’t get back. If you lose your luggage – I’m not gonna say the obvious brand of luggage that I’d normally say because I’ve got a meeting with them soon
– if you lose your expensive luggage at the airport, you can get that back. You can’t get the time back.People say it takes a village to raise a child. People ask me how my daughter is doing. She’s only doing good if your daughter’s doing good. We’re all one family.
We have the ability to approach our race like ants, or we have the ability to approach our race like crabs.
This is a generation that is far less racist – yes, small remnants remain of even thinking of calling something of a racial slur.
White people that listen to rap say ‘******’… in the privacy of their own home.
That idea [racism], has passed.
We’ve had The Cosby Show, Obama’s president, Beyonce’s great … that’s passed. But there’s still something you’re taught every day, especially in the UK, and that’s division by class. Our main focus, in my opinion…Imagine a world with no war, and imagine if everyone’s main focus, more so than going out to a club, their main focus was to help someone else.You know, Chris Rock called my album My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy … well, Chris Rock and everyone else at every single media publication called My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy the best album of the last 25 years. This only came through collaboration.
One of the most memorable things about MBDTF was Nicki Minaj
, and the fact that she kicked my ass, on my own song, on one of the best albums…the best album – I’m just saying what the critics said – of the last 25 years. The best album of the past 25 years that I spent a year and a half making, out there. I was exiled from my country, it was a personal exile, but exile. To come back and deliver my magnum opus of a work, and to be outshined … to be beat by a girl, basically.This was necessary. I think it was one of the most important points of working on that album, was to not stop her from her moment because of how good she is. Just think of a comparison, if you think about why did it take so long for the new Yeezys to come out? Why did I have to leave one group and go to another group? Why did that group not want to speak to me? I think the Yeezys I was doing over there were comparable to that Nicki Minaj verse. Because these guys were like ‘we’re worrying about this shoe, we’re gonna put it on this celebrity’. And the head’s son would come and say ‘my favorite shoe is the Yeezy’. And it’s like ‘ahhh, I can’t hear about these YEEZYS anymore!’. Like everyone talking about Nicki’s verse, ‘I can’t hear about this verse anymore!’. It was gonna work for her anyway, but let’s just say that in some way in helped give her exposure. She was able to go on and become a successful, and fly, and run, and dream, and provide. And it was not locked because of my career.
One of my biggest Achilles heels has been my ego. And if I, Kanye West, the very person, can remove my ego, I think there’s hope for everyone.
People say I have a bad reputation. I think I’ve got the best reputation in the building. They want you to have a reputation of tucking your black nail polish into your pockets and sitting in the corner of the class, and not fighting for your ideas out of fear of being ridiculed.
That’s one of my favorite ones … to be called crazy.
Let’s have an NBC telethon moment, and say that beauty has been stolen from the people and is being sold back to them under the concept of luxury!
It’s illegal to not wear clothes, and also possibly too cold. That means someone is imposing an idea on you that should legally have to do! Clothing should be like food. There should never be a $5,000 sweater. You know what should cost $5,000? A car should be $5,000. And you know who should work on the car? The people that work on the $500,000 cars. All the best talent in the world needs to work for the people. And I am so fukking serious about this concept that I will stand in front of anyone and fight for it. Because I was 14 and middle class. I know what it felt like to not get what I have.
People say to me ‘you’re successful, what are you crying about?’. I’m crying about the people. I’m crying about their daughters. Our daughters, as one family. What good is it. What good is anything that everyone can’t have. Every ism. They think we’re done with racism. What about elitism, what about separatism, what about classism? That’s all.”
