The artist formerly known as Kanye West, fresh off a slew of developments regarding his dealings with Gap and Adidas, appeared on Good Morning America on Thursday.
Ye covered a number of topics during the resulting interview, including his stance on social media, which he notes can be used for good just as easily as it can be used for bad. To make this point, Ye used the example of how prior inventions—in this case, the automobile—can also have both positive and negative impacts depending on how they’re used.
“I mean, we can use a car to rush somebody to the hospital or we can use a car and accidentally hit somebody while we’re rushing somebody to the hospital,” Ye said. “So it’s all in how we use it.”
At another point in the discussion with anchor Linsey Davis, Ye discussed his relationship with Kim Kardashian, with whom he shares four children.
“This is the mother of my children and I apologize for any stress that I have caused,” Ye said. “Even in my frustration, because God calls me to be stronger. … I need this person to be least-stressed and [to have] the best, sound mind and as calm as possible to be able to raise those children.”
Asked if he felt he had a voice as a co-parent, Ye agreed that he did but said he had to “fight” to achieve this.
“I do have a voice but I had to fight for it,” he told Davis. “That hurts when you have to, like, scream about what your kids are wearing.”
According to Ye, there have been “little nuances” shared among what he was dealing with at home and his issues with Gap and Adidas.
“It was all a kind of a disregard for the voice of something that I co-created,” Ye, who has publicly detailed his issues with both companies in recent days, explained. “I co-created the children, I co-created the product at Adidas, I co-created the product at Gap. There’s a parallel, and the parallel does touch on discrimination.”
In an apparent reference to potential restrictions regarding Yeezy standalone activities, Davis later asked Ye about the path forward for him and his ideas, prompting Ye to reveal with a smile that he and his team “got some new lawyers.” He also elaborated further on the current strategy in this aspect of his battle.
“We really had to level up and really show ‘em, you know, who’s the new boss in town,” Ye said. This led into a mention of the plan to now sell Yeezy directly to consumers, which was a possibility quite famously broached during a still-widely-cited Sway interview nearly a decade ago. In fact, Davis asked Ye directly about this, resulting in a playful admission from the artist.
“You know what, I will go ahead and say, Sway had the answer. I know people are gonna be like, ‘No!’” Ye joked.
Elsewhere, Ye spoke on his approach to continuing to grow Donda Academy, as well as confirmed he still has plans of the political variety.
See clips below and watch the extended video up top.
Additional footage of the Ye x Davis discussion is set to air Thursday night via ABC News Live, while a new half-hour special titled A Conversation With Ye will also later be available to stream via Hulu. Stay tuned.
