In a wide-ranging interview with BBC’s Zane Lowe, Kanye West opened up about many of the things on his mind and broke down into tears when talking about the death of Central Saint Martins professor, Louise Wilson, OBE. He called her “the baddest professor of all time” and explained how her tutoring of Phoebe Philo, Alexander McQueen, Christopher Kane and Alber Elbaz is what made their collections 12s out of 10. West covered his face with his hands, then excused himself to regain composure, before coming back and explaining, “That’s never happened to me in an interview before.” It was a touchingly personal moment from the rapper, who attended Wilson’s memorial service in London last week.
The rest of the interview covered everything from his favorite restaurant in London (Hakkasan) to apologies about the price point of his new adidas collection (he wishes it were cheaper, and promises the follow-up collection to be more affordable). Here were the other headlines from the conversation.
He wants to work with Disney and Universal to change the way we watch movies, but…
“I got all no’s on that… to date.”
He’s learning about furniture:
“The fact that I am a rich person afforded me the opportunity to go to French flea markets and the galleries and buy furniture that rich people get charged a lot for.”
He’s not into luxury and exclusivity:
“Exclusivity is the new N word…nothing should be exclusive”
On being right or wrong:
“I like saying shit that sounds wrong any, coz wrong is ok. We have the right to be wrong sometimes.”
His love of Only One:
“I wanna perform Only One as many times as possible.”
He’s never been Mr. Nice Guy:
“I didn’t come here to be nice. I came here to make a difference.”
He’s image hungry:
“I look at over 500 images a day on my laptop.”
On Louise Wilson:
“The greatest fashion instructor of all time. And I’m talking about of all-timers. So Louise Wilson was the baddest professor of all time, of any fashion school ever.”
Apple’s Johnny Ive is…
“The world’s greatest living designer.”
On design:
“I believe that the world can only be saved through design”
On art and design:
“Art is to be free. Design is to fix.”
What he talks about with entrepreneur Elon Musk:
“What does Kanye West and Elon Musk talk about? The fyootch” [the future]
He’s not going crazy, after all:
“If someone call you crazy enough times, you start to believe it. I almost got scared I was going to go crazy in some way, but I wasn’t going crazy. I was the only person that wasn’t going crazy.”
On class:
“Class is the new racism.”
There’s no love lost between him and the Grammys:
“The Grammys are like an ex-girlfriend. Soon as you get in the car with them, you wanna go right back home.”
His getting ready time is…
“Two-three minutes every day”
Kim’s getting ready time is…
“Sometimes five minutes, sometimes longer.”
He’s getting in lots of practice trying to make baby no. 2:
“Nori this one is for you. You need a sibling.”
On Drake:
“That shit is good yo.”