14 DAY TRIAL // Rapper Kanye West’s most recent interview with GQ magazine, out now, touches upon topics he normally doesn’t discuss with the press, like his May Italian wedding to Kim Kardashian, celebrity culture, and his daughter. He also talks about being a genius, dressing like a god, and being the most important artist in the universe, but these are things we already know, having heard him say them countless times before.
At the reception that followed the ceremony in which he and Kim became husband and wife, Kanye held a ridiculous speech similar to his concert rants, in which he proclaimed himself and all the Kardashians (but mostly Kim) “warriors” and declared war on the paparazzi and the tabloids.
The speech was met with plenty of ridicule online because, if you think about it, it’s not the kind you expect to hear at a wedding. Kanye is now saying that it was appropriate for the moment, but only if you’re aware of the context.
If you thought his comment that being papped was similar to getting raped was in bad taste, brace yourself for more of the same.
“What I talked about in it was the idea of celebrity, and celebrities being treated like blacks were in the ’60s, having no rights, and the fact that people can slander your name. I said that in the toast. And I had to say this in a position where I, from the art world, am marrying Kim. And how we’re going to fight to raise the respect level for celebrities so that my daughter can live a more normal life. She didn’t choose to be a celebrity. But she is. So I’m going to fight to make sure she has a better life,” Kanye tells GQ.
This isn’t the first time that he promises he will “fight” to make the world a better place for his daughter and neither is it the first time he fails to explain what he means by it. So far, the world is the same as before even though, by our calculations, he’s been “fighting” for several months now.
Kanye continues by comparing himself to a blowfish always on the defensive, saying he’s not a shark because he doesn’t want to hurt people: on the contrary, he wants to “help” them. But he will fight back if he has to.
And the analogies don’t stop here either: Kanye says he is like a “boxer” – only, you know, a bit more brilliant. He is a genius, after all.
“One of the things that I said at the speech was, anyone that's at this table has had to defend me or Kim or both of us at some point in their life. Ask a boxer: ‘In the third round, when he hit you from the side on your ear, how did that specifically feel?’ You wouldn't ask a boxer that. Because you know they're there to fight. Meaning now you know I'm here to fight. I'm here to fight for the re-education of what celebrity is. To say, ‘Yes, we are celebrities, but yes, we're also innovators, we're also inventors, we're also thoughtful’,” he says.
There’s no denying that he has a point when he says celebrities are dehumanized by the media or constantly harassed by the paparazzi. But there’s only so much one can take of hearing him boast of his brilliance: yes, Kanye is a very talented artist but there’s something extremely off-putting about his constantly rubbing our face in it.