That started to change last month when he went on his mother-in-law Kris Jenner’s chat show. The appearance illuminated Kanye’s mortal side: he was emotional, vulnerable, well-spoken, and calculated. He talked about being father and how he’s embarrassed that he doesn’t know how to set up a kid’s car seat. It put a crack in the media magnifying glass, briefly reminding us that he has to eat, sleep, fart and fuck like the rest of us.
But that’s just half the story, when brought back to the subjects of his music and his business, Kanye West falls back to his old habits: extreme passion and deep-rooted delusion.
It’s ironic that Kanye often talks of his admiration for Apple and Steve Jobs. While Jobs is applauded for his genius, people neglect the stories from former Apple employees that suggest he was a manipulative, power-hungry, fear-mongering bully. With Kanye, though, it’s the other way round. He’s unable to be labelled a genius, because often, there’s a refusal to see beyond his grandiose acts of self-belief.
Last night’s interview with Zane Lowe touched upon both sides of Kanye. We started out with a shy, reserved character, who was happy to hear praise of his new record. But by the end, he was Kanye West. Despite his best efforts to reign the conversation in, Zane let Kanye get into his zone.
He spoke at length, countlessly returning to the subject matter of his desire to expand beyond music – “I have driven my Truman show boat into the painting, I have hit a glass ceiling” - and the subsequent denial of those opportunities with regard to the colour of his skin, stating that beyond music, creative black people were only allowed their “best perspectives” on T-shirts.
It’s a classic Kanye statement of provocation but one that deserves our attention.Yeezus was a record that left you speechless. As astounding as it was unaccountable, it represented Kanye’s need to move forward and “crack the pavement and make new sounds culturally”. There’s no doubt that he achieved that goal and his achievement should allow him to move forward in other areas.
Take his seven-screen immersive experience, screened at Cannes last year, it was a brash and potentially groundbreaking piece of work. As Kanye states in the interview, any want to discuss his creative outputs outside of music are ignored. He claims he only wanted to talk to the New York Times about cinema but they cut any mention of the film from the interview.
The same goes for Kanye’s want to work with fashion. “I’ve put in 10,000 hours. No one can say I don’t know how to design a men’s sneaker” Yet, despite his Yeezy IIs selling for obscene amounts on eBay ($90,000), he’s been denied the opportunity to create more product for Nike. Despite interning at Fendi, creating his own line, and regularly attending fashion shows, his want to delve into higher-tier sartorial wear has been similarly parred.
This, he believes, is because the patinas of a drug dealer, gangster, or other racial stereotype, fit him better than what he’s aiming toward. In the world of both cinema and fashion, which are still predominantly dominated by rich, old, white families, Kanye has to fight for a place. He’s saying that JAY Z can strike a deal with Samsung, will.i.am can sell his soul to HTC, and Dr Dre can flog headphones, because they’re all working in conjunction with multi-million dollar companies who benefit off using an artists image. But Kanye wants more than that, he wants to create his own ventures, and is seemingly denied so because the only benefit he has in mind is bettering culture, rather than contributing to someone else’s bank account.
Perhaps he’s dramatising a little here, no artist gets to talk about their new project as much as they’d like to and there have been others who face cynicism when they try to move between industries. His massive achievements in music don’t mean that he deserves the benefit of the doubt of his desire to create “the first trillion dollar company”. Indeed, his first fashion collection was largely lambested by journalists.
But the point stands that when Kanye goes on a chatshow, or is written about in the mainstream press, they use the same tired tropes of speaking about a rapper - an old white man making pretend “hood” signs, or naff jokes about how “the kids love him” - rather than those reflecting a mad millionaire with ambitions only for high culture.
Describing his own situation, Kanye said: “You don't realise, I am so frustrated. I am so frustrated. I've got so much I want to give. I've got ideas on colour palettes. I've got ideas on silhouettes. And I've got a million people telling me why I can't do it. You know, that I'm not a real designer, that I'm not this. I'm not a real rapper, either! I'm not a real musician, either! Like, I don't know how to play the piano. I'm an artist. I went to art college and was looked at like I'm soft because I wore like Italian clothes, you know what I'm saying, when I'm rapping in front of Cam'ron. And my pants is tight.”
There’s something admirable about this latest bout of bravado. No one doubts that black men from humble backgrounds can go on to become huge rappers, so Kanye’s taking the fight somewhere else, to the tops of industries where inequality, or at least deep-rooted imbalance, still exist.
But the fact remains that at the moment, everything Kanye does outside of the music is left as little jokey footnotes. And to an extent he only has himself to blame. His hyperbole and self-interest perpetuate the idea that he’s a self-believer with great expectations that are never realised. But behind it all, he’s smart. He takes risks. He launches ventures, agencies, and commercial campaigns unlike anyone else. And yeah, he makes amazing music, too.
While the difference between Job’s and West’s genius is that Steve’s goal was to make the best devices in the world, not to be the biggest, and Kanye’s is to create the best things in the world, and to be the biggest, they’re both part of a precious race of people that help push the world forward. In Jobs words they’re “the misfits. The rebels. The trouble-makers. The round pegs in the square holes. The ones who see things differently… they change things. They push the human race forward. And while some may seem them as the crazy ones, we see genius.”
Whether he can make it in industry remains to be seen, but there’s no doubt Kanye fits that bill.
Follow Ryan on Twitter: @RyanBassil
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