Kanye West is writing a book. This finally confirms that all of our historical and philosophical texts in the future will be composed entirely of quotes from his interviews. The news was revealed in a new interview with West by Pret-a-Reporter. The news was revealed in a conversation in Pret-a-Reporter between West and Belgian designer Axel Vervoordt, who has collaborated before with Yeezy on interior design. The two get incredibly deep into matters of art and architecture (Kanye: "I remember walking in and feeling like the movie Batman. Some Bruce Wayne type. It had this very soulful, emotional feeling to the space."), which naturally results in Kanye spilling the beans about the upcoming literary text he's working on.According to the interview, Kanye is sculpting "a philosophy book" (though he apparently likes to use the word "concept" instead of "philosophy") called Break the Simulation which, if I'm reading this right, concerns the battle between the past and future as captured through our obsession with photos and other frozen memories. Here's Kanye to elaborate further:
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While it's extremely easy to mock Kanye for being kind of headass in this explanation, this is pretty simple when you break it down. Nostalgia is powerful, and we should be existing in the now as much as possible. That line in "Monster" that goes "I'm living in the present cause the present is my past / My presence is a present, kiss my ass" summed this up years ago, to be honest.In all seriousness, this is a very grounded, if rather haute couture interview. It's cool to see Kanye talk to someone who seems to get him on an intellectual level rather than someone attempting to goad him into saying ridiculous things. That being said, he definitely compares himself to the late Stephen Hawking and also claims that "I don't wish to be number one anymore, I wish to be water" in what may be his greatest quotable in years. Some things don't change. Read the entire interview here.Phil is on Twitter.I've got a concept about photographs, and I'm on the fence about photographs—about human beings being obsessed with photographs—because it takes you out of the now and transports you into the past or transports you into the future. It can be used to document, but a lot of times it overtakes [people]. People dwell too much in the memories. People always wanna hear the history of something, which is important, but I think it there's too much of an importance put on history.