“We Should All be Trying To Make Something That’s Better”

Referring to himself as “an inventor,” and “an innovator,” Kanye West has certainly been unequivocally vocal about his contributions to music in the past but in this new cover story, he goes a little deeper.

Kanye West has literally taken to paper to write a new essay; ‘The American Dream’, for PAPER, the magazine which previously hit headlines in 2014 when it attempted to “break the internet” with the infamous Kim cover.

West outlines what he sees as his creative purpose, his feelings about Tidal and the accusations about it being a front for the Illuminati, as well as addressing why he hasn’t spoken out on social media about recent events in the country.

When it comes to his experiences of racism as a 10 year old in China when people used to try and rub the colour off of his skin, he continues that racism may be a different type of issue for the next generation -“This race is up against some interesting things — poverty, war, global warming, classism — and we have to come together to beat this. It’ll only be as a collective that we can beat this, and we can. We can create a better world for ourselves.”

Talking about his legacy he writes about a new attitude of life where he no longer believes that he requires all the credit and even 20% is enough credit for any contribution he can make. “I think it’s so important for me, as an artist, to give Drake as much information as I can, A$AP, Kendrick, Taylor Swift, any of these younger artists as much information as I can to make better music in the future.”

Help me to help more.

In an earlier interview with DJ Semtex around the release of ‘808’s and HeartBreak’, Kanye had also revealed his place as an innovator in music and expressed a view counter to the ego more often portrayed in the media “I’m at a point now where I’m just trying to push the envelope. I’m trying to push other people to do what they do better. I don’t have every advantage, I’m not the best rapper, I’m definitely not the best singer, I’m teetering on the worst.”

“I don’t care about capitalizing off of something that we’ve seen or heard a thousand times. I’m not a capitalist in that way. I’m an innovator. That’s my job.”