Kanye West has done a new interview with The New York Times‘ Jon Caramanica where he has discussed a range of topics including feeling suicidal, Drake’s writing contribution to ye (on the song ‘Yikes’), his controversial slavery remarks on TMZ, his support for Trump and much more. Here are a few highlights below.
Kanye admits to considering suicide:
He discusses the lyrics of the opening song on ye, ‘I Thought About Killing You,’ where he alludes to suicide. “Oh yeah, I’ve thought about killing myself all the time. It’s always a option and [expletive]. Like Louis C.K. said: I flip through the manual. I weigh all the options. I’m just having this epiphany now, ’cause I didn’t do it, but I did think it all the way through. But if I didn’t think it all the way through, then it’s actually maybe more of a chance of it happening.”
Clarifies Slavery comments:
“I said the idea of sitting in something for 400 years sounds — sounds — like a choice to me, I never said it’s a choice. I never said slavery itself — like being shackled in chains — was a choice.” He added that he would be more careful about how he words his thoughts from now on: “I wouldn’t frame a one-liner or a headline. What I would say is actually it’s literally like I feel like I’m in court having to justify a robbery that I didn’t actually commit, where I’m having to somehow reframe something that I never said. I feel stupid to have to say out loud that I know that being put on the boat was — but also I’m not backing down, bro. What I will do is I’ll take responsibility for the fact that I allowed my voice to be used back to back in ways that were not protective of it when my voice means too much.” Clarifying what he meant by “back to back,” he acknowledges that wearing the M.A.G.A. hat and then discussing slavery on TMZ “left [his] voice unprotected.”
Drake wrote the hook on ‘Yikes’:
Yes, Drake had written on “The Life of Pablo,” which was not a secret. And as it happens, he wrote for Kanye on “Ye” as well — the hook for “Yikes” is his. (He also wrote a whole first verse, Kanye said, though it didn’t make the final album.)
Kanye was concerned Kim might actually leave him after the infamous TMZ interview:
“There was a moment where I felt like after TMZ, maybe a week after that, I felt like the energy levels were low, and I called different family members and was asking, you know, ‘Was Kim thinking about leaving me after TMZ?’” he said. “So that was a real conversation.”
Kanye hunted down Cardi B’s co-writer on ‘Drip’ for contributing to ye:
After hearing Cardi B rap “I gotta stay out of Gucci/I’m finna run out of hangers” on her song “Drip,” Kanye tracked down her co-writer, Pardison Fontaine, and brought him to Wyoming: “I was just like, that’s something that I would have thought of and would like to say.”
Read the full interview at NY Times.
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