Every Incredible Fashion-Related Quote From Kanye West's Interview With Zane Lowe

Full quote: "It's just the way I was consuming information in my life at that time...Taking 1,000 meetings attempting to get backing to do clothing, and different things like that, and getting no headway whatsoever, because it was just that level of frustration, and that's what, this is what frustration fucking sounds like."

Full quote: "I have reached the glass ceiling. As a creative person, as a celebrity. When I say that it means I want to do product. I am a product person. Not just clothing, but water bottles design, architecture, everything that you can think about, and I've been at it for 10 years. And I look around and I say, 'Wait a second. There's no one around here that looks like me, and if they are, they're quiet as fuck.'"

Full quote: "Do you remember our South Park photo? Remember how funny that was? Do you think there'd be a Givenchy in the hood if it wasn't for that South Park photo? But no one thinks of that. No one thinks of the names I got called for wearing tight jeans."

Full quote: "I brought 10 years of product that has added to humanity. And now, where's the culture at?! So then I scream and I'm sitting in the middle of it. Whether I'm at a dinner with Anna Wintour, or I'm at a listening session with Pusha, or me and Virgil are in Rome giving designs to Fendi over and over and getting our designs knocked down. We brought the leather jogging pants six years ago to Fendi, and they said, 'No.' How many motherfuckers you done seen with a jogging pant?"

Full quote: "So when I see Hedi Slimane, and it's all like, 'Okay this is my take on the world.' Yeah, he got some nice $5,000 jeans in there. It's some nice ones here and there, some good shit here and there. But we culture. Rap the new rock 'n roll. We culture. Rap is the new rock 'n roll. We the rockstars. It's been like that for a minute, Hedi Slimane! It's been like that for a minute. We the real rockstars, and I'm the biggest of all of them. I'm the number one rockstar on the planet."

Full quote: "When I say 'Clean water was only served to the fairer skin,' what I'm saying is we're making product with chitlins. T-shirts! That's the most we can make. T-shirts! We can have our best perspective on T-shirts! But if it's anything else, your Truman Show boat is hitting the wall."

Full quote: "What people don't realize is, I wanna make uniforms for my high school basketball team through brand Yeezy. I wanna make that one step and then make another step and then eventually do uniforms for the entire city. Then I want those uniforms to be hot and make money, and I eventually want to be the anchor and the force behind a $1 billion company. And after I've made that billion dollar step, then I can go in and say, "Hey, I've got an opinion on this." And that could be a $10 billion step. And I eventually want to be the anchor of the first $1 trillion company."

Full quote: "People could say, 'Oh, he's frustrated, he's that, he's that.' No. All I need is the breakthrough. The joint-venture for my clothing. Same as Stella McCartney has, I could name so many people that have joint-ventures, a backing, to express themselves that way. Okay, bam. I need that outlet. And then you'll get things closer to Watch the Throne. You'll get things closer to 'Bound.'"

Full quote: "You don't realize, I am so frustrated. I am so frustrated. I am so, I've got so much I want to give. I've got ideas on color 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.

"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. Trying to spit a verse for Cam. That's the same when I'm sitting there at a fashion show. I'm there because I appreciate Phoebe Philo. I appreciate Raf Simons. I appreciate Riccardo Tisci. I look at them as my peers. As creative people who dedicate their entire life to making something better for the world. We dedicate our entire life to making our current time and civilization better. To adding something to the culture."

Full quote: "I've got a very particular, specific take on men's footwear. No one can say I cannot design or understand how to design a guy's sneaker. When I was in fourth grade I was drawing Jordans when my mama couldn't afford them. I was drawing those Jordans. Getting kicked out of class for drawing them."

Full quote: "I've dedicated the past 10 years of my life to this. I spent 80% of my time working on this, and 20% of my time working on music. Why do you think the song 'Niggas in Paris' is called 'Niggas in Paris?' 'Cause niggas was in Paris! That's why we were in Paris. I put in the 10,000 hours."

Full quote: "People say life isn't fair. And unless you're Kanye West, or you this pretty girl that dates this soccer player, or your parents had money, you don't get to wear Versace all the time. And you hear it, we love Versace! Versace! Versace! Versace! Versace! Versace! We love Versace. Versace is the greatest designer of all time! We love Versace...

"The creatives, they want to connect with people. These artists, the clothing designers, they want to connect with people the same way that music gets to connect with people. But the cost of silk is too expensive. And they won't lower their quality levels. So I can spend $2 million on a record and give it out in a democratic way. They could spend all their time making the greatest dress in the world, and it's just impossible to hand-make that many. "

Full quote: "You can have on a Zara pant, right? And a girl walks in with the Celine version, and you feel like shit. That is the problem. I'm talkin' about us, the new slaves, the people who love fashion. I'm talking about us, you know? 'Cause I'm a slave to it. I love it. I love it! I loved it since age five, when my mama brought me to a discount fur spot. She asked me what I like, and everything I liked was too expensive for us."

Full quote: "I went to my grandfather's funeral, like three weeks back. A cousin that works with me stood up and he told this story about how his mother was a tailor. So he won best dressed. I won best dressed in high school, too. A bunch of people in the lineage of my family won best dressed. But his mother was a tailor. This is I'm assuming what Hedi Slimane's father was. His mother was a tailor, an African-American tailor.

"My grandfather was a hustler. He used to take old vintage furniture and reupholster it. Then he got a store and he sold all of these different items that he thought would be good for people. Do you know how many times I sat with people and said, 'Hey I wanna make a store.' And they said, 'How could you make a store?' It's in my code! It's in my code! You ever seen Wreck-It Ralph? You remember how that girl in there... Yeah, she was the Glitch. You tellin' me people don't look at Kanye West like the Glitch."

Full quote: "Shoes. You put on shoes everyday. You walkin' down the street with no shoes, somebody might think there's something wrong with you. You walkin' down the street with no headphones, it's like, 'Oh what's up? No headphones today? Cool!' No shoes? 'Look, man. What's going on? You having problems with the family?'Socks, at least. Sandals. Flip-flops. Sandals with socks. Keep it gangster. No flip-flops for black dudes. I don't care where you at. No flip-flops on black dudes. Wear some hot-ass Jordans on the beach."

Full quote: "People could say, 'What do you mean you want to help the world and you're so concerned about fashion?' It's illegal to be naked. It's not illegal to not listen to music. That is a very high opinion to have. That is something that is extremely important."

Full quote: "I'm just saying I want to make things. I want to be able to make things. And I'm not going to be able to make things that I can call Kanye West just by making T-shirts."

Full quote: "Okay, for me, first of all, dopeness is what I like the most. Dopeness. People who want to make things as dope as possible. And, by default, make money from it. The thing that I like the least are people who only want to make money from things whether they're dope or not, and especially make money from things that are as least dope as possible."

Full quote: "Both this song ['Black Skinhead'], 'I Am a God' and this song were made after Hedi Slimane didn't let me into his first Saint Laurent show. But it wasn't that.. He wanted me to go, but he just told me I couldn't go to any other shows other than that. And I was like, 'Wait a second.' You're not telling no editor they can't go to any of your shows. I'm not your boy. You can control me in some way. Off of that, I went into the studio with the producers that made the music for his show. And made 'I Am a God' and 'Black Skinhead.'"

Full quote: "That's how y'all look. 'It's been eight years, and he still sittin' there on that runway.' And I'm like, 'Yes. I am. And there's still not a black person at the end of that runway!' And I'm gonna sit here on this runway until I'm at the end of it. Because that's that thing that people slave over. That's that thing that people are slaves to. That's that thing that I'm a slave to. That's passion.

"That's that thing where you can hold it. That's that dreaming of a new pair of Jordans. That's the process of opening up a Nike box. That thing that Steve gave us when you open up your new iPhone and you got the iPhone5  whether you stood in line for it or whatever it is you did. You open it up, and you got this new product. That's that Transformers in a box that you open up for Christmas or that new TurboGrafx16 or Sega Genesis or Amiga computer or a 3DO or a Nintendo. Or it's like when you just open that packaging. The process of the packaging, that's why I'm on that runway. Until I'm at the end of it."