Time released its annual list of the "100 Most Influential People" this morning and our one true god, Kanye West, made an appearance. This comes almost 10 years since he first covered Time back in 2005 as "Hip-Hop's Class Act," which seems weirdly patronizing in retrospect.
Anyways, what's always unique about the list is that all the entries are typically written by other influential people, with Kanye, 2015 "Boundary Breaker," copping the coveted Elon Musk cosign. Musk builds his short entry around the fact that Kanye is what many other rappers are not: thinkers, a topic Kanye has rapped about before. "But Kanye does think. Constantly. About everything. And he wants everybody else to do the same: to engage, question, push boundaries. Now that he’s a pop-culture juggernaut, he has the platform to achieve just that," Musk says.
The video of Kanye talking about himself touches on his Adidas collection, naturally. He basically calls it magic because "no one believes it's possible." It is the elitism in fashion that pushes Kanye forward. He says he felt the pressure and that the "world was against" him. He even goes as far as to mention how after presenting his first women's collection in 2011 only a couple editors came for a resee appointment. His fashion publicist, Deborah, exasperatedly told him no one else was coming and, despite her concern, Kanye loved it. "This is great. Remember this moment," he recalls telling her.
Most notably, Kanye mentions that rather than think about what his legacy is going to be, he just wants to help other people. Talk about Humanitarian Kanye™ at his best.
