-By Warner Todd Huston
In a new interview, pop artist Kanye West revealed just what made him write “I Am God” for his latest album, Yeezus. It was, the singer tells W magazine, a “major diss.” Not one from another rapper, but one from a fashion designer.
There was once a time when rappers got hot under the collar when rival rappers “dissed” them, sometimes guns were drawn over the argument, too. But, as he often does, Kanye went in a different direction with the locus of his diss-i-ness.
We are told that West was invited to an exclusive fashion event at Paris Fashion week. But he was only invited, he says, if he refused offers to go to any other show that week. The designer, it appears, wanted to be able to boast that only he had Kanye West.
Apparently West felt this was a Diss.
“So the next day I went to the studio with Daft Punk, and I wrote ‘I Am a God,'” West told the magazine. “Cause it’s like, Yo! Nobody can tell me where I can and can’t go. Man, I’m the No. 1 living and breathing rock star. I am Axl Rose; I am Jim Morrison; I am Jimi Hendrix.”
West also felt it was “ludicrous” that someone had the audacity to tell him where he could and couldn’t go. “It’s blasphemous–to rock ’n’ roll, and to music,” he proclaimed.
Many music critics do think West is a god of sorts, though. His music is widely touted as some of the best on the scene today.
But perhaps his brilliance is a bit over stated? The interview has a rather amusing subtext that seems to undercut the claim that Kanye West is some sort of Rhodes Scholar.
West is especially wary of print interviews, since the writer retains the power to choose which of his quotes are relevant (though at one point he asks me to streamline his more rambling comments or, as he puts it, “to turn my flea market of information into a beautiful living space”).
The article takes for granted that West is not very articulate and presents West as so brilliant that he hopes that writer will polish his words so that he sounds smarter to the readers.
There follows one more segment of note.
And finally, there’s his self-acknowledged deficiency in the eloquence department. “God’s little practical joke on me–as an intellect who doesn’t like to read a lot–is like, I’ll say some superphilosophical sh*t, but I’ll say it the wrong way,” he says, laughing. “I’ll use the wrong word, so it goes from being really special to completely retarded.”
“Superphilosophical sh*t” that sounds “retarded.”
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“The only end of writing is to enable the reader better to enjoy life, or better to endure it.”
–Samuel Johnson
Warner Todd Huston is a Chicago based freelance writer. He has been writing opinion editorials and social criticism since early 2001 and before that he wrote articles on U.S. history for several small American magazines. His political columns are featured on many websites such as Andrew Breitbart’s BigGovernment.com, BigHollywood.com, and BigJournalism.com, as well as RightWingNews.com, RightPundits.com, CanadaFreePress.com, StoptheACLU.com, AmericanDaily.com, among many, many others. Mr. Huston is also endlessly amused that one of his articles formed the basis of an article in Germany’s Der Spiegel Magazine in 2008.
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