If you’re intrigued by Kanye West’s worldview and wish to subscribe to his newsletter, you might have to give up your obsession with Instagram. At least that’s what we’re getting out of his new Hollywood Reporter interview with interior designer Axel Vervoordt, who helped design West’s home with Kim Kardashian. Mixed in with their musings on ugliness, time and coffee tables is the rapper’s off-hand revelation that he is currently working on a book of philosophical musings.
“I’m writing a philosophy book right now called Break the Simulation. And I’ve got this philosophy — or let’s say it’s just a concept because sometimes philosophy sounds too heavy-handed,†West says. “I’ve got a concept about photographs, and I’m on the fence about photographs — about human beings being obsessed with photographs — because it takes you out of the now and transports you into the past or transports you into the future. It can be used to document, but a lot of times it overtakes [people]. People dwell too much in the memories. People always wanna hear the history of something, which is important, but I think it there’s too much of an importance put on history.â€
While obsessing about the past can be a pitfall, Kanye also predicts the Class of 2500 might very well look back on the West-Kardashians’ work for guidance, and not just when they’re studying him in their Philosophy 101 classes. “Even with my wife, I see her as a representation, as a Marie Antoinette of our time,†West tells Vervoordt, with whom he is developing a Los Angeles community. “So with your mentality with spaces, I believe that what we’ve been working on will represent humanity for the next 500 to 1,000 years.â€