In a rare moment of concession, Kanye West admits that he doesn’t think he’s the King of Rap right now. Drake is, he tells GQ’s Zach Baron in a Q&A so filled with perfect Kanye-isms that it can barely be broken down (although here we are, trying): “Yeah. He got last summer. And I’d never given it up till last summer … It’s a real question for me. Do I want to?†And while you should probably read the entire thing, here are some of the important things to know:
His next album might come out in September, and he already has the lead single:
I don’t know, man. I hope I can get one of these songs out in the next couple of weeks, just to have something up and running. But I think most likely September. I go back and forth. Like, should it be September or should it be October? Should it be November? When Beyoncé was working on her last album, she took a while. I was thinking it could somehow come out in June, like Yeezus, and just kill it for the summer. But then I’m like, I have to work on Adidas and be with my child.
All of that wacky stuff in the “Page Six†article about his wedding? Most of that stuff was true:
[GQ reads excerpt about the gold toilet]
For the person that wrote that, were they involved with anything last year that was as culturally significant as the Yeezus tour or that album? They didn’t even talk there about the photographs, or the dress, or Andrea Bocelli singing, or the marble tables. They’re like: “It’s a gold toilet.†No. The bathrooms — that usually would be a porta-potty — were wrapped in a fabric that was neutral to match the fort. The bar was terrible, and the wedding planner didn’t approve it with me. I was having issues with this wedding planner the entire time on approvals, and I get there and they threw some weird plastic bar there. So the same materials that were used to cover the bathroom, we said, “Let’s just use that, because this is all we have to make the bar look better.†Which it did, in the end. And anyone knows that you cannot pick up tools yourself, because of — what are those rules about the workers?
(He meant unions.) Then he basically confirms that his toast was 45 minutes long, and involved some Kanye Mad-Libs about Carine Roitfeld and Tumblr and Walt Disney.
He sees Kim Kardashian as his “dinosaur.â€
Like they said in Step Brothers: Never lose your dinosaur. This is the ultimate example of a person never losing his dinosaur. Meaning that even as I grew in cultural awareness and respect and was put higher in the class system in some way for being this musician, I never lost my dinosaur. Kim is this girl who fucking turns me on. I love her. This is who I want to be next to and be around … You mean to tell me that this girl with this fucking body and this face is also into style, and she’s a nice person, and she has her own money and is family-oriented? That’s just as cool as a fucking fighter jet or dinosaur! And just as rarely seen.
Here’s that Step Brothers dinosaur moment:
And he sees himself as a blowfish:
There’s no fangs. I don’t have fangs. I’m a porcupine. I’m a blowfish … I’m not a shark, I’m a blowfish. So that perfect example about me hitting my head, it’s like a blowfish. I wasn’t coming out of my house going to a paparazzi’s house to attack them. I’m defending my family in front of my own house. I’m defending my name as someone’s screaming something negative at me. That’s a blowfish. People have me pinned as a shark or a predator in some way, and in no way am I that. I wouldn’t want to hurt anyone. I want to defend people. I want to help people.
… A blowfish who loves his family:
We’re a family now. I am an arbiter of taste, and people think that I have the ability to make things cool — or if I’m doing it, it should be cool. And I feel that this stuff’s starting to be cool. And that feels good to me. Because I don’t like walking around with people thinking I’m doing uncool shit, because there’s nothing I’m doing that’s uncool. It’s all innovative. You just might not understand it yet. But it’s cool. Family is super cool. Going home to one girl every night is super cool. Just going home and getting on the floor and playing with your child is super cool. Not wearing a red leather jacket, and just looking like a dad and shit, is like super cool. Having someone that I can call Mom again. That shit is super cool.
You know what’s the coolest, though? If that last part made you cry.