Porn, God, And Being “The Greatest Human Artist”: The Latest Kanye West Interview Was A Lot
From the very outset, the key to Kanye West has been the man’s maximalism.
No other contemporary musician so firmly believes that bigger means better. Kanye’s music, his album roll-outs, and his interviews have always prioritised massive revelations over subtlety or nuance.
Sometimes that’s to his great disadvantage — think of him being burned in his TMZ interview for some thoroughly fucked comments on slavery, or the years of controversy that have followed him since he decided to invade Taylor Swift’s space and praise Beyonce. But even when it hurts him, that grandiosity remains his whole damn deal.
That hasn’t changed during the promo roll-out for his newest record, Jesus Is King, dropping today (supposedly). In a career-spanning interview with Zane Lowe, West touched on everything from his newfound faith, pornography, and being the best. Seems like Kanye hasn’t changed one dot — even as he’s changed.
Here are the five biggest takeaways from the chat.
Kanye Is Serious About Christ
Kanye has flirted with faith his entire career. But for a lot of that time, it seemed like he wanted to usurp Christ, not to be him.
Well, if there’s one big takeaway from his Lowe interview, it’s that Kanye is all in on spirituality. Faith imbued the entire chat from start to finish. “Everything I do, even designing a shoe, is for the Church,” the rapper said. “It’s my only mission and calling, is to spread the gospel.”
Later, in the chat he talked about how faith had improved his life. “Yes, I’m at peace. I give it all up to God. The thing I pray for to be more Christlike is the grace. And then as God strengthens my hand, it’s to have more grace.”
He’s Still Planning To Run For President
Remember when Kanye claimed that he was going to run for office? Well, he hasn’t let that dream die yet. “There will be a time when I’m President of the United States and I will remember — I’ll forgive, but I’ll remember — any founder who had a failure to understand what I was trying to do with culture,” he said, although he was cagey on actual details about his plans for office.
He Used To Have A Sex Addiction
Another major theme throughout the conversation was sex — Kanye kicked things off by revealing that he asked all of his collaborators on Jesus Is King to abstain from pre-marital copulation.
Later, he revealed that he has struggled with sex addiction throughout his life. And when he says life, he means almost all of it: at one point, he reveals that he stumbled across his father’s copy of Playboy when he was five.
“Playboy was my gateway into full-on pornography addiction,” he told Lowe. “My dad had a Playboy left out at age five and it’s affected almost every choice I made for the rest of my life from age five to now, having to kick the habit. It just presents itself in the open like it’s OK. I stand up and say ‘You know, it’s not OK.’”
Kanye Still Loves Trump
Kanye has been somewhat quieter on his support for Donald Trump over the recent months. But with Lowe, he went deep on his weird hang-ups with liberals and why he has repeatedly come out in defence of a President who objectifies and denigrates anyone who isn’t straight, white and male.
“For the greatest artist in human existence to put a red hat on was God’s practical joke to all liberals,” Kanye said. “Like, ‘Nooo, not Kanye!’”
Oh, And He Definitely Thinks He’s The Best
It wouldn’t be a Kanye interview if he didn’t come out in support of, y’know, himself. Which he did, summing up the entire Kanye brand in one brief soundbite.
“I am unquestionably, undoubtedly, the greatest human artist of all time,” he said. “It’s not even a question at this point. It’s just a fact.”