Hey, here's an idea — what if noted author and egotist Bret Easton Ellis interviewed noted musician and egotist Kanye West? That'd be pretty entertaining, right?
Yeah, it turns out it would. 'American Psycho' and 'Less Than Zero' author Ellis kicked off his new podcast by interviewing self-described "creative genius" Kanye West today, and the quotes were every bit as, uh, quotable as you'd expect.
Here's West, on his mental age: "The better and better I get at what I do, the younger and younger I am. Like, every day I’m getting younger. … When I made ‘Graduation’ I was 6 years old. When I made ’808s’ I jumped to 5 years old. When I, uh, made ‘Cruel Summer,’ uh, I jumped to 5 years old. Then the Taylor Swift thing happened, right? And I had to grow back up. And I delivered what could be considered my most, you know perfected work. And I had to turn to like a 7-year-old. I had to almost reach 10. I almost reached 10 years old when I did ‘Dark Fantasy.’ I had to grow up for a second. … And then I’m having a little bit of fun.
"And then when I went to ‘Yeesus’ I kind of got back to under 5, like four-and-a-half. And now I’m mentally, completely 3 years old. So if I talk to paparazzi, I’m 3 years old. If I get into an argument with Bob Iger, I’m 3 years old. If I get into an argument with Oprah Winfrey for two hours, I’m 3 years old. But don’t let me get proper money, support backing and to put my work out and let the earth speak back to it. I’m gonna be two-and-a-half years old. By the time I’m like 50 I’m gonna be one. And by the time I’m dead I’m gonna be zero."
On fashion: "The skill set to dress nice is too high. You know what I mean? If someone looks at you and says, 'Oh, you dress nice', you have to, like, focus on it so much; you have to almost be a scholar of clothing to be a well-dressed person and stuff."
On slavery: "For me, I felt like the main character [in '12 Years A Slave'] in what I'm dealing with even as a, like, megapopular rich celebrity, fuck-you-who-do-you-think-you-are-to-complain-about-anything situation that I'm in when I deal with... attempting to create in other fields. Or attempting to create in clothing. I've kind of been on this campaign that started with, ironically, my song, 'New Slaves'."
On 'Breaking Bad': "Literally, me and my girl sat up in a hotel, we had some days off, and we said, 'look, let's go ahead and watch this so we can be normal human beings."
On job titles: "If I were to write my title, like going through the airport, and you have to put down what you do? I would literally write 'creative genius' except for two reasons: Sometimes it takes too long to write that and sometimes I spell the word 'genius' wrong. The irony."
For the full, uncut genius, head to podcastone.com
