Kanye West has been on a tear lately. While he's been going from city to city as part of his Yeezus tour, he's taken the time to stop by various radio stations for a series of interviews. His radio run culminated this past week while he was in New York City, where he put in two high profile appearances.
The first one was on Power 105's The Breakfast Club, which even Kanye admitted he was looking forward to. The reason it was so hotly anticipated was because of host Charlamagne Tha God who has been openly critical of Kanye lately. Charlamagne didn't disappoint, he insulted Kanye to his face by calling Yeezus "wack" and saying the video for "Bound 2" was "terrible." But Kanye kept his cool and things went smooth. However, later that day, Kanye went on Shade 45's Sway In The Morning and flipped out on host Sway for the second time this year. Their exchange lead to another immortal Kanye quote, "YOU DON'T GOT THE ANSWERS, SWAY!!!"
As entertaining as that interview was, it was just as unfortunate. Because once again, the public discussion about Kanye right now is focussed more the "oh-man-he's-so-crazy" stuff than his art or ideas. Kanye's way of talking can make his interviews confusing. (Does anyone understand the thing about Adam biting the apple, and then it being illegal to be naked?) And his habit of comparing himself to people like Steve Jobs and Walt Disney and Nikola Tesla is not always so attractive. But there's no way you can hear Kanye West talk for hours and not learn something interesting about him. While his interviews have revealed some big news items—like how he's switching from Nike to Adidas—there are plenty other little gems of info he's dropped along the way. Here's 25 Things We Learned About Kanye West From His Recent Radio Run...
Written by Insanul Ahmed (@Incilin)
He felt he was at his “highest level” when he made songs like “Heard’Em Say” because they sounded like A Tribe Called Quest to him.
(via Shade 45′s Sway In The Morning)
He thought "half" of Drake’s songs were coming at him, and this is why he went to Toronto for the OVO Fest.
(via Shade 45′s Sway In The Morning)
He went $13 million in debt setting up his clothing line.
(via Shade 45′s Sway In The Morning)
He considered taking Nicki Minaj’s verse off “Monster” out of jealousy—because he thought people would say she had the best verse on MBDTF.
(via Shade 45′s Sway In The Morning)
He considers Drake, Lil Wayne, and James Blake all a part of G.O.O.D. Music, saying, “Every artist that makes good music, is on G.O.O.D. Music.”
(via Shade 45′s Sway In The Morning)
There were certain songs he didn’t want Big Sean to put on his album Hall of Fame.
(via Shade 45′s Sway In The Morning)
His mother nicknamed him "Mandela" when he was a kid.
(via Shade 45′s Sway In The Morning)
One of the reasons he did WTT was to learn social skills—how to be "likeable"—from Jay Z.
(via Power 105’s The Breakfast Club)
“All of the Lights” started as a Jeezy song (with the horns) and took two years to complete.
(via Power 105’s The Breakfast Club)
The Yeezus pop up store made over $350,000 in two days.
(via Power 105’s The Breakfast Club)
When Kanye was a child, his stepbrother convinced him to loan him the money he was saving to buy a sampler. He promised to pay interest—but then never paid him back at all. This is how he learned that his stepbrother was addicted to crack.
(via Hot 97’s Juan Epstein Podcast)
He calls his drums the “achilles heel” of his music because his drums don't "knock" the way he wants them to. He redoes the drums on “Can’t Tell Me Nothing” when he plays it live in hopes that they will sound more like Mike Will's or Young Chop's drums.
(via Hot 97’s Juan Epstein Podcast)
When he sat with Michael Jackson at Lyor Cohen’s house, Michael said he liked his singing on “Good Life." This inspired him to do 808s & Heartbreaks.
(via Hot 97’s Juan Epstein Podcast)
He met with the head of Disney, Bob Iger, eight times and was told, “Your brand doesn’t fit our brand.”
(via Hot 97’s The Angie Martinez Show)
Kim Kardashian set up a meeting with Deepak Chopra because Kanye was so getting stressed out before completing his deal with Adidas.
(via Hot 97’s The Angie Martinez Show)
“Lost In the World” started as a poem he wrote for Kim.
(via Hot 97’s The Angie Martinez Show)
When he felt like the sound wasn’t good enough at his live show, he called Dr. Dre and asked, “Who would have the best sound?”
(via WPGC's The Pablo Show)
He was once involved a legal case with Suge Knight.
(via WPGC's The Pablo Show)
One of his favorite songs is Donny Hathaway’s “This Christmas.” He plays it all year round.
(Via Wired 96.5’s The Big Philly Show)
James Blake is his favorite artist right now.
He has sought advice from everyone from neurosurgeon and Presidential Medal of Freedom winner Benjamin Carson to Apple’s Senior Vice President of Design Jonathan Ive to Facebook co-founder Mark Zuckerberg to Tesla Motors and PayPal founder Elon Musk.
He met one of his idols, Steve Jobs, once very briefly after performing at an Apple keynote address.
(Via Wired 96.5’s The Big Philly Show)
He considers 2Pac the best rapper of all time.
(via 97.1 AMP Radio)
He thought of using the sample of Chaka Khan’s “Through the Fire” after hearing it in a coffee shop in Westwood, NJ while recovering from his car accident. It started as a joke.
(via 97.1 AMP Radio)
He worked with four different jewelers and made three different rings before asking Kim to marry him. In fact, he changed the design at the last minute and the ring he presented her was only a few hours old.
(via 97.1 AMP Radio)
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