“Usually, when you’re the absolute best, you get hated on the most,” Kanye informed a hall full of graduating fashion students at L.A. Trade Tech College on Friday night; the very same school he did community service at as punishment for assaulting a photographer at LAX airport. After watching a fashion show of student work, Yeezy gave a short, stream-of-consciousness style speech, warning his audience that, “It’s a tough world out there, you’re going to prepare yourself for politics, bad bosses, hatin’ employees”. Emphasizing that fashion is a difficult industry to break into, he said, “Even for me as a successful musician, in order to make the transition it was really all but impossible. People always try to box you into what they know you best for.”
Kanye reflected on the nature of being an artist, and hinted that his daughter, two year old North West, is set to follow in her enterprising family’s footsteps: “Artists, or the most successful artists, are as close to who they were when they were five years old, or four years old, or three years old, or when my daughter wakes up and decides to change her career seven times a day”. Linking these pearls of wisdom back into the situation at hand, Yeezy concluded, “So I feel extremely honoured to see new talent fighting for their voice, and I can only imagine that they’ve been fighting for it since age three.”
Yeezy’s words follow a few weeks of weird graduation speeches by celebrities at US colleges, and he actually made more sense than most. Matthew McConaughey started his speech to University of Houston students like this: “Short and sweet or long and salty? A sugar donut or some oatmeal? Out of respect for you and your efforts in getting your degree, I thought long and hard about what I could share with you tonight”, whereas Robert De Niro told New York’s Tisch School of Arts students, “Tisch graduates: you made it. And, you’re fucked!” Original, at least.