EVERY SPOKEN WORD
150 min read · 30,049 words- 0:02 – 3:55
Kanye announces the presidential run and its spiritual origin (2015 → 2020)
- KWKanye West
(drumming) Joe Rogan podcast, check it out. The Joe Rogan Experience.
- JRJoe Rogan
Train by day, Joe Rogan podcast by night. All day. (instrumental music) Hello, Mr. West.
- KWKanye West
What's up?
- JRJoe Rogan
What's going on, man? Good to see you.
- KWKanye West
Good seeing you too.
- JRJoe Rogan
We finally did it. We're here.
- KWKanye West
We're here.
- JRJoe Rogan
We made it happen.
- KWKanye West
We're in the building. Yes, sir.
- JRJoe Rogan
(laughs)
- KWKanye West
Yeah.
- JRJoe Rogan
So, what, what are you doing? You running for president?
- KWKanye West
Uh, yes.
- JRJoe Rogan
What made you decide to do that? Aren't you busy enough? Clothing company, successful rapper, family man.
- KWKanye West
Uh, it was something that God put on my heart back in 2015. Uh, a few days before the MTV Awards, it just, it hit me in the shower. And when I first thought of it, I just started, like, laughing to myself and it, it, like, all this, like, joy came over my, over my body, just through, through my soul and I could just, I, I just felt that energy. I felt that spirit so then two days later, I, uh, accepted the Michael Jackson Video Vanguard Awards at the, uh, MTV Awards and, um, instead of performing, you know, my array of hit songs, you know, I gave, uh, just my perspective on award shows. But always how, I knew at the end I was gonna tell people "I'm, I'm running for office. I'm running for president in 2020." And, you know, just to have the, it, it, it even took heart to say it in that context and people were just like, "Oh!" Like their, their minds were blown. And then I was hanging out with different, uh, I had different friends that were, you know, some people in the music industry, some people tech elites, different things like that, and they would, um, really, you know, they just really took it as a joke and they were telling me all these millions of reasons why I couldn't run for president. I remember running into Oprah two days or one day after that and she's like, "You don't wanna be president." And, you know-
- JRJoe Rogan
(laughs)
- KWKanye West
... people just, you know thought projecting, putting this on you, and I, I remember saying, uh, one of my responses to one of the people that, one of the naysayers was, "Well, I'll definitely be a billionaire by that time." Uh, and not that that's a reason why someone should become president, but it's to say, you know, at that time, I was, uh, 50, around $50 million in debt and I knew I had the confidence that I would be able to turn that around. And now, you know, just going into... And I wanna just give you a, a, a, that's a clear answer is what I wanna-
- JRJoe Rogan
Right. I know what you're saying.
- KWKanye West
... I don't, I don't wanna go off on too of a-
- JRJoe Rogan
No, it's okay. It's-
- KWKanye West
... rip right there. Yeah.
- JRJoe Rogan
We, what you're basically saying is you know how to set goals and you know how to achieve them. But what, what was Oprah's rationale when she said, "You don't wanna be the president." Like, what was she saying? 'Cause I, remember when people were saying "That, that's our next president." Remember when Trump got elected, you know, they showed Oprah and they were saying like, there was, I believe it was like NBC tweeted it. "This is our next president." Like, they, A lot of people wanted Oprah to w- to run and they felt like if Trump could win, Oprah could win.
- KWKanye West
When I saw Trump win, I was like, "See? You can win outsi- out-, you know, I was, um, "You can win if you're coming from outside of politics." I was young when Ronald Reagan was in, was president. I don't remember-
- JRJoe Rogan
But Ronald Reagan was the Governor of California before he was the president. He had actually proven himself as a politician.
- KWKanye West
Mm-hmm.
- JRJoe Rogan
At least somewhat.
- KWKanye West
Which is an idea that people have thrown out at me to-
- JRJoe Rogan
To be Governor of California?
- KWKanye West
To be Governor of California.
- JRJoe Rogan
So anyone's better than this guy.
- 3:55 – 8:20
“Leader of the free world”: vision, utopia, and political innovation
- KWKanye West
But I think, I, I think my calling is to be, uh, I, I, I believe that my calling is to be the leader of the free world. Not, not, I mean, if, if it's in God's plan that part of my path is to be the governor, then that's fine, but my calling is to be the leader of the free world.
- JRJoe Rogan
So when you say this-
- KWKanye West
Mm-hmm.
- JRJoe Rogan
... like when you say your calling is to be the leader of the free world, what, what does that mean to you? Does that, does it mean that you have a plan that's different than the plans that have been implemented before? Does it mean that you have ideas-
- KWKanye West
What, what kind of plan?
- JRJoe Rogan
Like the plan to be the leader. Like, what would you do if you were the leader of the flee- of the free world? Like, what would be different about the way you would handle things? Like if that's your plan, like, what is it about that that, that is your calling? Like why would, why would you wanna do that? Like what do you wanna do differently if you were the leader of the free world?
- KWKanye West
Well, um, well, there is a couple questions in there. You said why is, you know, why is that your calling. There's people who will say to me, you know, they'll say, "Well music is bigger than politics or more influential than politics." Or, "Celebrities are more influential." And, uh, I thought of it like if I was a pastor of a 100,000 person church, but then I was also um, uh, a captain, a sailor, and then we went to war and I said, "I'm gonna man this ship that has 1,000 people, 1,000 soldiers on it because God is calling me to take this position." Even though I'm the pastor for, you know, however big my audience is in hip-hop, uh, in music or as a, just an influencer or celebrity, uh, or just as a dad and a, and a husband in my house, the world is like, it, it couldn't be a better time to put a visionary in the, in the captain's chair. Um-And that's not to say we, we haven't had visionaries be, uh, before. I'm not coming here to down any of the other, uh, I'm not here to down Trump, down Biden. Uh, I'm just here to express why, um, uh, why God has called me to take this position. Um-
- JRJoe Rogan
So when you say a visionary, you th- you think of yourself in, in terms of like as an artist, as a creator. Some, someone who has these thoughts that they manifest in, in terms of music and art and creation, design, the things that you do.
- KWKanye West
Mm-hmm.
- JRJoe Rogan
That's why you, you think you're different, as a, as a visionary?
- KWKanye West
Yeah. I, I, I, I think that, I think I'm different from ... I mean, I, we're all different, so I'm definitely different from everybody. We're all different from each other. I mean, I do bump into people that seem to be like the same character or inside a- (laughs)
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah.
- KWKanye West
I- it, it's like the people-
- JRJoe Rogan
I've seen one of those before. Yeah. (laughs)
- KWKanye West
Yeah, that people play the same roles. Like, "Man, I just met you before." They, "You're, you're-"
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah.
- KWKanye West
"... just like the head of this company over here." You're the same kinda-
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah.
- KWKanye West
... person. Um, yeah. You know, I mean, I manifest. I see things. Uh, I'm a great leader because I listen and I'm empathetic and I feel the entire earth and I feel us as a, as a species, as the, the human race. Like, I d- sometimes people think a, uh, utopia as almost like a negative word that's, that's like we couldn't have that, but I do believe in world peace. Like, the people hit me with the ... Oh, one of the things Oprah said is she said, "You gotta bone up on your foreign affairs." I remember this, like, 'cause it's Oprah talk-
- JRJoe Rogan
Right.
- KWKanye West
... and so I'm gonna remember (laughs) a lot of what the conversation was.
- JRJoe Rogan
(laughs) .
- KWKanye West
But that's the first thing she said was, you know, uh, foreign affairs and foreign policies. Like, just, I think, the reason why I say leader and not politician and not even specifically, uh, president is, uh, this is the time. You know, when, when the Constitution was written, that was an innovation. Now, the world is innovated all around our
- 8:20 – 14:00
Reforming the music industry: contracts, masters, and artist exploitation
- KWKanye West
political system, but we haven't innovated and simplified our political system. So I met with, um, this gentleman, Sam, uh, one of the founders of Y Combinator. So Y Combinator is a, a, um, is a contract that my friend, the head of Dropbox, used, um, and that a lotta tech guys use, and it's a standardized deal. So one of the ideas I had when I was, um, uh, as I'm in this process of innovate, I'm not in, I'm not in war with the music industry, it's just, it's time for us to innovate, uh, and we need to have contracts that make sense with exactly how we sell music. So, you know, people, eh, every vicinia, and that's like a, every 20 years, that's like the, like decade is 10, a vicinia is 20, and as you see now, it's like the world has just stopped for a second and there's a opportunity to look and say, "What are the things we need? What are the things we don't need?" So I don't know if you saw when I posted my contract, I had 10 contracts that kept on putting me inside of labyrinths, and there's things that we don't need. Now, I, I believe that the distribution partner that the label is ... Like Prince would go and say, "Oh, we don't need the distribution part," especially if Prince was, you know, really alive and thriving in this internet era. I'm the kinda person where I'm not tryna go and eliminate anyone's job, so record labels are afraid of saying, "Okay, we're gonna hand over the distribution completely to you guys." Which is, you know, it's, that's a possibility. Um, there's a way where both parties can be happy and that these infrastructural partners can be of service to the influencer, to the artist. Like, these, these deals can be flipped in a way that they're just more fair. Uh, you know, w- a record ... And I just, let, let me just go into this specific, um, place with the record labels for a second.
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah, please do.
- KWKanye West
And I, and I know I'm talking about that for a while.
- JRJoe Rogan
'Cause it's a confusing thing for people on the outside.
- KWKanye West
Yeah. So before, when I told my father I wanted to rap, he was, uh, very like leery of that idea. He said, "Th- this, this, I heard this business is terrible." And, you know, he's right. Like, people are all seeing things that are wrong inside of contracts, turning blind eyes to it, and everyone's responsible. Everyone's a part of it. You know, it's like when the Me Too movement happened, you know, it wasn't just the guys that were getting tagged and, you know, some of the guys shoulda got hit with it, some of the guys shouldn't. You know, that's not what I'm here to talk about. I'm saying that in a way everyone's responsible. Everyone's a part of the problem. That's why I really love that, um, Black Mirror episode when, you know, everyone was making comments and anyone that even made a comment, the bees ... It was about these, uh, you know, uh, mechanical bees. Anyone, and this is a spoiler al- alert if you haven't seen this episode, but anyone who made a comment, the bees came to go get 'em. And that's the thing about what you put in the universe, even a thought, you know, you put that thought into the u- it's another thing to say something negative and put that into the universe. It's another thing to see someone being raped. You know, that's the reason why I compare what's happening to, in the music industry, to Me Too, because artists are raped. You've heard that term before.
- JRJoe Rogan
Mm-hmm.
- KWKanye West
I'm not, this is not like, um, this is not like a new thing that I'm making up. The, the contracts are made to rape-... the artist. And, um, you know, I put my... Like I- I think about, you know, this is like a thought right now. It's like, is this a- a negative thought that I'm putting into the universe? But I have to say, like, when I was going on Twitter, I was thinking about Bruce and Brandon Lee. That crossed my mind. To say I'm, this is Sony, this is Universal, and I'm willing to put the blue paint on my face and go out and do this because it's the right thing to do. Like, music, like, at this point, it loses me money. (laughs) It doesn't make m- it doesn't make me money. It just... My- my $5 billion net worth and $300 million of cash that I see a year, music is like negative $4 million for me. So, these contracts for me were kind of like Waingro in Heat, where this guy had everything, but he still said, "Waingro messed up this- this, uh, this heist that we were gonna do." Like, I look at the music industry, not music and the love of music itself, but the music industry, I look at it like Waingro, like... I blame, you know, the loss of my mother partially on enter- the entertainment industry. The always fighting to, you know, represent, you know, who you are against media. Entertainment in- an industry that's trying to tear down anybody that's not, uh, going with the flow. I- I see, you know, I've got those kind of reasons personally, uh, but, uh, "Vengeance is mine," said the Lord. So, it's not a matter of going, uh, in for revenge. That's just me as a human being where I fall short. Like, I'm not a monk. Yeah.
- 14:00 – 16:41
Conspiracy fears, celebrity deaths, and speaking out against powerful industries
- JRJoe Rogan
Can you explain what you're talking about with Bruce Lee and Brandon Lee? Like, what... I- I lost you there.
- KWKanye West
Okay. So, Bruce Lee and Brandon Lee were both murdered.
- JRJoe Rogan
Well, Brandon Lee died in an accident on a movie set.
- KWKanye West
Yeah.
- JRJoe Rogan
Do you think it was a m- a murder?
- KWKanye West
I felt-
- JRJoe Rogan
It's... That's a conspiracy, right? The conspiracy was that the Chinese triad killed him the same way they killed Bruce, but... 'Cause the- the coroner's report was that Bruce died from a- a reaction to a medication, right?
- KWKanye West
Yeah, I mean, but I think about that anytime I go to the- go to the hospital. I'm very... You know, I'm mindful of that stuff.
- JRJoe Rogan
Mm-hmm.
- KWKanye West
You think about like Bob Marley, they didn't just JFK or MLK him.
- JRJoe Rogan
Mm-hmm.
- KWKanye West
There's like reports that it was something in his toe or...
- JRJoe Rogan
He had cancer, right? I d- believe he had a skin cancer.
- KWKanye West
Yeah. Like I- I went to go... Uh, I got a shot in my, uh, in my hand 'cause, uh, just from texting and stuff, my thumb was, like hurt. And then I post-
- JRJoe Rogan
Do you text so much it hurt your thumb?
- KWKanye West
Absolutely.
- JRJoe Rogan
(laughs)
- KWKanye West
Just texting way too much. (laughs) So, I post a picture of, uh, the screen at the hospital, and then I was asked to take it down.
- JRJoe Rogan
By? By who?
- KWKanye West
People just called, I'm forgetting exactly who asked me, but it was like, they ge- they got to my management, they got to this, and they said, "Take that picture down." Like, the hospital, (laughs) it was in the weirdest place, you know? So-
- JRJoe Rogan
What- what did they not like about the picture?
- KWKanye West
Um, I think it had like... It might have had some information on it that they didn't want to go out, like an address or something like that.
- JRJoe Rogan
Oh, okay.
- KWKanye West
And- and it's just like... But I don't wanna go down, go- go down these rabbit holes. I'm just saying like, Michael Jackson not waking up one day, Prince not waking up one day, Bruce and Brandon Lee, Bob Marley, all of these things are... Have crossed my mind, you know, as I'm going and saying, "I need to innovate what these contracts are." Not just for me, but for all artists. It's not about me getting my masters back. It's about, it's about, uh, freedom. And I- I say on a new song, I say, "If I would put myself in harm's way to get my masters, they would put their self in harm's way to stay the master." And that's... There's a complete parallel to the way the music industry works and the way the world currently works, and the influence that America has on other countries and the way governments
- 16:41 – 18:30
Money, class, and the “Titanic/Rome” metaphor for civilization’s collapse
- KWKanye West
work. Uh, the influence and the way government and the way people in power, in control deal with, you know, disaster relief. Deal- deal with Haiti. Deal with, uh, the Bahamas. Like, where is the money going? Why aren't things being built? And this concept of money, right? I asked myself this, um... Uh, I asked someone a week ago, like, "How much is America in debt?" And they were like, "This many trillion." And then I asked my- a rhetorical question, but the dumbest question I've ever asked myself. I said, "Well, you know, how much does the Earth cost?"
- JRJoe Rogan
(laughs)
- KWKanye West
(laughs) Think a- think about-
- JRJoe Rogan
That's not a bad question.
- KWKanye West
But- but I-
- JRJoe Rogan
How much is the Earth worth right now?
- KWKanye West
Yeah, what is- what is the Earth worth?
- JRJoe Rogan
Everything.
- KWKanye West
What i- yeah.
- JRJoe Rogan
All the things on Earth.
- KWKanye West
Yeah. And it's saying we can't buy it. We couldn't make enough money to buy the Earth, right? So, that means we made money. So, if money is the key to all people's happiness and will solve everything, and everyone's doing things for money, let's just make more money. But it's not about making more money. It's about keeping poor people poor and rich people rich and keeping pe- keep- keeping people in their place. And right now, we're experiencing the fall of Rome, or the Titanic has now hit a glacier and there's people who would prefer to go down with the Titanic than to get on a lifeboat because they don't wanna get seawater on their dress or on their nice outfit. The... People are so...... programmed and brainwashed into, uh, classism and protectionism that, uh, it's difficult for people to embrace innovation unless
- 18:30 – 28:26
Faith pivot: Sunday Service, ministry building, and creative purpose
- KWKanye West
it has a tag on it that's got a name brand connected to it that says, "With this innovation, you will be better than the person (laughs) y- you'll be better than your next door neighbor." You know, when I made Sunday Service, I, I completely stopped rapping because I didn't know how to rap for God. You know, all my raps always had like, um, you know, like nasty jokes on it, and, um, and then, you know, I made, um, I made, uh... W- when I, when I went to the hospital, I know you wanna get into this, when I went to the hospital in 2016, I wrote, uh, started church in Calabasas. And as we left from 2018 going into 2019, I said, "I'm not gonna let one Sunday go by without starting this church." And there's people who said it wasn't a church and different things, but to start a ministry, I'm like the little drummer boy where I'm saying, you know, "This is all I got to bring, my, my drum. I might not be well-versed in the Word, and, but I, I, I know how to do... make music, and I know how to put this choir together, and all things can be made good for God." So, it like, quickly became the best choir of all time because all the best singers moved to California, and now... But a lot of them grew up in the church so it's like, the opportunity for n- for them to actually get paid singing for God, because I would be funding it, and that for me was like a tithe, for me to fund Sunday service and I was four months in before I gave my life to God. Like, I wasn't saved, it's just I had a calling saying, "Just go make this church." And the whole thing th- the comparison to this church to me going and saying, "Okay, why, why am I running for president?" Is to be in service, not service to my, my own ego. Uh, you know, I feel like God says to me, like, "H- haven't I given you enough... Like, I, I gave you an ego that helped you overcome all these, you know, roadblocks and smokescreens and people telling you what you can't do. Now you need to realize when you're doing things for your ego and when you're doing things for me." This is like God... The... What I feel God is saying to me, uh, 'cause it, it really irritates me when people say, "God told me to tell you..." (laughs)
- NANarrator
(laughs)
- KWKanye West
So, I'm very like mindful with this kind of word. And this, I'm saying I have a feeling that that's what God is saying for me to be in service. So, the ultimate service position is leader of the free world, to be the President of the United States. It's, uh... Sometimes you see me on Twitter, I'll say, "I want all the smoke. I want all the problems," because the problems are the opportunities. There's an opportunity to solve things. And Kurzweil, uh, he created the keyboard, Kurzweil, uh, he, he has this video that Mark Romanek, this, uh, director that shot 99 Problems with Jay-Z which is like my favorite, uh, may... Like top five or top two favorite videos of all time. Uh, he also did, uh, Closer for Trent Reznor, and I like... I just grew up on MTV in the '90s and I love Mark Ra- Romanek videos. But he would share, um, he'd share little bits and pieces, and I remember Ray Kurz- Kurzweil talking about the ability for us to have a utopia but us being led by the least noble and the most greedy. But if someone or when someone gets in a position of leadership that is in service to God and in service to people, period, but immediately the American people... Um, I had this joke I was saying like, "Man, no one outside of our country should be able to see these debates. This is family business right here. This is only for (laughs) America to see. We can't let anyone outside the country see," but to be in service. So, I, I stepped away already from my rap career for a year and served God every week, sometimes twice a week, three times a week. Never missed a Sunday until COVID, and, um, and this is the thing. There were people inside of the church stealing, doing different things, trying to just take the money, and God still provided a way for us to keep that boat afloat. We never missed a, we never missed, uh, a service and then, uh, one of my pastors, Pastor Adams, who is, uh, uh, uh... M- the way he preaches is, is called expository. It's like one-to-one by the Word. I, I like all different kind of preachers, but there are some type of preachers, they, they get up, they have the Bible in their hand, then they close the Bible (laughs) and then they just talk for a, two hours. And it's, and it... and, and some do have anointing, but the expository preachers go line-for-line. And for me, it's like, I come from entertainment. I got so much sauce. I don't need no sauce on the Word. I need the Word to be solid food that I can understand exactly what God was saying to me through the King James Version, through this, you know, um, through this translation or the English Standard Version. So, Pastor Adams was coming by my spot, uh, I got this 300-acre spot in, um, Calabasas, uh, that we had a little house in that I was recording, and I would play this music, these chords that I love. They're almost like monk-like, um, and that's gonna go into something we'll talk about later because I'm building a monas- I'm, uh, building, um, a monastery that will be- then be the future of, uh, monasteries, just like, uh, full sustainable energy. Now-... uh, he says to me, Pastor Adam says to me, when I was thinking about, "Should I rap or not?" He said, "My son just said, you know, 'I wish, I, I wanna hear Ye rap, do an album about Jesus, a rap album about Jesus.'" And it was through the mouth of babes. Like, this person, I'm gonna listen to the kids, bro. You know, I'm gonna listen to my daughter, I'm gonna listen to kids before I listen to, you know, super programmed out adults. And especially if that adult hasn't done something that I am looking to do. Right. Uh, so it's so funny how people are so, like, free and almost arrogant with their advice, and I'm just like, "Why would I listen to you?" (laughs) "You don't even ask me for any advice and I'm the most successful person I know." So, the, um, um ... So he said, "My, my son wants to hear a rap album from Ye." And that just, that was, that was the paradigm shift for me. I use that word a lot. I, I like that, I like paradigms shift. It's one of my favorite word. The (laughs) and I, I made this rap album and, you know, for a lotta people, it was the first album that they could play with a certain production level in the house with their, with their, with their family. Now, you know, you could argue if the Watch the Throne production was stronger or better than, uh, Jesus is King production, but when I go and I ... Like, I've been working with Dr. Dre and some of the beats would just be like, you know, the hardest beats possible, and it's something that was very spiritual and meditative about the mix on Jesus is King, that it wasn't hitting as hard as Yeezus or hitting as hard as, uh, Watch the Throne. It was like, this is how God wanted me to make this, uh, make this sonic painting, and the way he wanted me to communicate then. So we did that album, and then we did the Jesus is Born album, which also I got that idea from Pastor Adams. Uh, and I mean, there's people who that's the only album they play, and it's just bringing these gospel ... And I'll tell you, like, my formula for these hymns I'm writing, because I'm writing ... The, the, the songs that we're doing at, uh, Sunday Service is basically my book of hymns for the future gospel university that I'm creating, where I've envisioned and will manifest a 200,000 seat stadium, circular, with 100,000 gospel singers. And people will go to this university and they will train the way, you know, a Russian Olympic swimmer (laughs) you know. I bet you, like, they would be in the pool six days a week, at least, if not seven days. But for people who sing for the church or, you know, uh, you know, because it's, it's, it's a tide, it's pro bono, it's all this. Like, people don't practice that as much as we practice going to a studio to rap, or, or practice, uh, playing basketball if we're in the NBA. So, it's making the NBA, so to say, uh, the coliseum for God. And what that... Have, have you, like, heard, like, soccer chants? Mm-hmm. And like, "Rah," and just like 60,000 persons- Yeah. So, I envision that for God. 100,000 people s- sometimes singing in, uh, harmony, sometimes in unison. << Glory, glory, oh, God Almighty << we lift our hands and give you praise. >> << Glory, glory, oh, God Almighty >> ♪ We lift our hands and give you praise ♪ ♪ Glory ♪ But picture 100,000
- 28:26 – 48:07
Donda as a human-future lab: food, shelter, schools, and sustainable communities
- KWKanye West
people in unison and that feeling, what that would do for our spirits, our souls. It's healing. There's natural forms of healing about our environment, um, the friends that we're around, what we're wearing, what we're eating, our diet. So, Donda is a design company that, um, that, uh, I formed around 10 years ago, and some of the people that worked at Donda are now, have went on to become heads of fashion houses like, uh, Virgil's the head of Louis Vuitton and he was the head of Donda at a certain point. Another guy that worked at Donda is now the head of Givenchy, so this is like the, the talent pool. And this, Donda is basically my version of like a, a cyber, you know, (laughs) extension of my brain. Like, here's something that I'm thinking of that you can't touch, but we need to, we need to bring it into fruition. We need to manifest it, and we have to see how to use things of our past and things of our now to create our future. So, it's a, uh, a organization, um, created to, uh, guarantee the future of the human race, really. And I thought about even calling it EDNA, 'cause I see us all as superheroes and Edna was the designer in The Incredibles- (laughs) ... which is kinda almost really similar to Donda. I'm just seeing these lineups and stuff. So, um, so now, uh, our focus is food, clothing, shelter, communication, education and transportation. So, at the school that I just created, Yeezy Christian Academy, you know, we call NASA, we call different places about this hydroponic, uh, vertical growing, uh, uh, garden. And I, I remember sitting ... You know, the idea of the garden is from A to Z you have to be able to make your food right there, fully sustainable, right there on your land. And, you know, there's a bunch of people like, "Oh, I made this salad right here." It's like, "Mm-mm. I'm, I'm not, that, that's not good enough." You still gotta go to the grocery store for 80%, 60% of your stuff. And I remember this one, you know, um, this one farmer we had-... you know, he wanted to build this class for the kids and all this said, "We're gonna show the kids this." Like, people always make the kids version. I don't like this, the kids version thing. Like, kids need to understand how... What if the pandemic was, you know, they lost all their parents and it was lost... Kids need to understand early how real life works. So, physics is one of the anchors of the school that I'm creating. I remember, you know, I'm, uh, the city is all self-sustaining, so it works off of our four main resources, earth, wind, uh, water, and, and fire. And, uh, 90% of it is running off of water with, like, aqueducts like the city of Masada. And I was talking to this engineer, um, and saying, "I need the whole thing to run off of water." And he said, "Well, we're gonna have to use solar power." And I said, "I don't..." And please, you know, don't take this as any offense. (laughs) I don't like solar panels. I feel that they're part of still of what Edison's idea was. I don't feel like they're really in line with what Nikola Tesla really wanted to do with alternative c- current. We can get into the whole Tesla and what Edison did to take Tesla down, and the fact the world would probably be free by now if Tes- if Tesla wasn't basically destroyed by the media that Edison controlled and the propaganda that Edison controlled. So, I'm, I'm talking to my engineer and saying, "This needs to run completely with water, and I don't want to use, uh, a solar anyway." And he says, "No, I'm saying we're gonna use a mirror, and it's gonna connect to a steam, uh, engine, and that's gonna push the water back up." And I was like, after, like, screaming at the guy, I was like, "Look, if I had known physics, I wouldn't have been screaming at my engineer." So, if we think about what we're learning in school to learn physics, to learn far- farming, I was, um, I was talking to, um, a friend of mine that's a, a, a rapper and super, uh, super, um, God-following, spiritual, super smart, and I was showing her the, um, uh, uh, some of the designs for, uh, the monasteries and some of the designs for the fully sustainable communities, all the same thing. And then it said bioengineering on it, and she said, "Well, what do you..." She... It's like for her, bioengineering has a negative connotation. And my response was, "Isn't, like, farming and cooking, like, bioengineering at the, at the simplest form?" Like, we went to, w- going from like grabbing apples off of a tree to, oh, we put this, boom, in the ground. Oh, and we could grow this and we could grow this, you know, we could grow this harvest right here. So it's, you know... I wanna, uh, just simp- simplify and round up. The, the principle behind, uh, the Donda way of thinking is we've got all this information and all this, you know, these scien- you know, these scientific, um, uh, exploration, these things that Tesla never completed, these things that da Vinci never completed, and, uh, we can look at all of these things and see how do we create the most primitive versions of this to create a fully sustainable ecosystem? Which is, you know, what COVID actually helped us to, you know, get closer to our families, get closer to our children, uh, understand like, oh wow, that, you know, that was mapped out for us to be 50 minutes away from our home and our kids' school to be 30 minutes away and to put us in traffic for that amount of time. And these cities have been designed to promote industry and just to make more money. They haven't been designed to promote happiness. So, we're at this paradigm shift in our existence. You know, it was when, when Mohammed hit the market, I think that's who it was, and brought money because before it was slave and trade. And this is something, you know, dishonorable men honor money. I got this bar from Dave Chappelle. I'm not trying to, like, uh, steal his bar. Uh, and, you know, we as human beings, as this, this race on Earth have like been honoring money. And, you know, money isn't... It's not even real, you know? It's not even backed by anything. I don't wanna, like, go too far into that. But when you unprogram yourself, you see that there's other forms of currency now. Like, relationships are a more important currency than money itself and that's what we really saw. It's like the end of the movie, the, uh, our existence would be pre-COVID, post-COVID. And so as the Titanic is crashing and sinking and Rome is falling, there's gotta be this new civilization, like the end of Tron where everything starts to light up and it's been under this, like, dark cloud. So, you know, God is using me and he has a calling, you know, in my life to make the world better for all people. Like, people say there's bad people, there's good people. No, there's, there's, there's people that are possessed that have demonic ways, but we were all children o- at one time. They say some people, no, they were born bad. You gotta remember, like say, oh, there's bad people, even, even the devil's an angel (laughs) , a fallen angel-
- JRJoe Rogan
Right.
- KWKanye West
(laughs) ... a lost angel, like Los Angeles, if you think about it. (laughs)
- JRJoe Rogan
(laughs)
- KWKanye West
(laughs)
- JRJoe Rogan
Let me... But that's the city of Angels.
- KWKanye West
(laughs)
- JRJoe Rogan
Let me, let me, let me start from the beginning. So you, you essentially deconstruct things.
- KWKanye West
Mm-hmm.
- JRJoe Rogan
So when you say i- in, in many ways when you're describing yourself as a visionary-
- KWKanye West
Yeah.
- JRJoe Rogan
... this is, uh, what I'm saying is that you're, you're looking at all the systems that are in place, whether it's the record industry-
- KWKanye West
Mm-hmm.
- JRJoe Rogan
... um, the contracts that are wrong with artists-
- KWKanye West
I think-
- JRJoe Rogan
... the way civilization is set up, the way money is set up-
- KWKanye West
I think visionary is too, uh, glossy and too saucy of a title.
- JRJoe Rogan
Okay, well, whatever it is-
- KWKanye West
I think more of a engineer. Like, you're the... right.
- JRJoe Rogan
... you're, you're deconstructing-
- KWKanye West
Yeah.
- JRJoe Rogan
... all of these things and you find flaws in the systems. So all these systems, whether it's the, the music industry system, whether it's the political system, whether it's the, the, the system of gathering food, whether... Even a religious system. Like, I remember when you started doing your Sunday service-
- KWKanye West
Mm-hmm.
- JRJoe Rogan
... and my friend was like, "What is he doing?" I go-... he's making going to church cool again.
- KWKanye West
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
- JRJoe Rogan
Like, you don't think that's... Look at all these people having a great time. You have, you have thousands of people that are chanting and singing along. Like, he's not asking for anything. And I go, "Look, if anybody should be doing something like that, it's him."
- KWKanye West
Mm-hmm.
- JRJoe Rogan
I go, "'Cause he's making great music, everybody's having a good time." And what do you get out of that? The best thing that people ever get out of church is sense of community, uh, a time where you get together and you all agree this is where you're gonna concentrate on good. You're gonna concentrate on goodness. You're gonna concentrate on, on, on, on, on trying to find these shared values that are gonna help the community. Now, you're doing this in this mass form. You got this superstar musician who's doing this in this mass form with thousands and thousands of people in these gigantic areas. Like, that's nothing but positive.
- KWKanye West
Mm.
- JRJoe Rogan
So, you deconstructed the idea of how, how to do a religious service but make it cool. And now, you're thinking about deconstructing all these different things. You're thinking about deconstructing how, how food is harvested. You're d- thinking about deconstructing how we make energy. You're, you're literally trying to deconstruct and, and reimagine the idea of civilization.
- 48:07 – 1:00:28
Mental health, ‘rants,’ and medication: creativity vs sedation
- JRJoe Rogan
... and these ideas are just coming at him." So, you do go on these rants that sometimes need to be dissected into individual things, but overall you're int- incredibly productive. So, my question is, why do, why do people think there's something wrong with you?
- KWKanye West
Right. Well-
- JRJoe Rogan
This is, but I, l- legitimately, like you've been medicated, they've, they've put you away, right? They've-
- KWKanye West
Right.
- JRJoe Rogan
... brought you med, to med... How did that happen?
- KWKanye West
Well, well, I'll say these two things. I think, uh, very three-dimensionally. I don't think in the black and white lines that I've been programmed to think in, and I, and I think in full color. So when I talk, I have to describe a thought in five ways. You know, we, we enjoy food that has multiple seasoning in it. We enjoy music that has multiple instruments. So when I talk, it's not a rant, it's a symphony-
- JRJoe Rogan
Yes.
- KWKanye West
... of ideas. And when you collect them, you say, "Oh, these are all these things that connect." Yeah, you know-... I, I, I just tell the truth, and telling the truth is crazy in a world full of lies. That's simply it. Yeah.
- JRJoe Rogan
But none of the things you're saying are crazy. None of the things you've said are cray-
- KWKanye West
Yeah.
- JRJoe Rogan
... it's fascinating the way you think-
- KWKanye West
Mm-hmm.
- JRJoe Rogan
... because I can see that you're thinking in all these different layers and you're looking at things from all these different perspectives, and they all come together out of your mouth in, like, a tornado of ideas.
- KWKanye West
Mm-hmm.
- JRJoe Rogan
Now, if someone wants to just have a conversation with you back and forth, I could see where they would go, "The guy's crazy. He just doesn't stop. He's just ranting." But what I'm seeing is just you're a very thorough thinker. You're thinking at things independently, but you're thinking of things in a, a, a massive perspective. Now, who convinced you that that's be-... Is it... Hav- have you always been this way or were you less... Is it, was it less manageable before? Did you have issues with it before?
- KWKanye West
Yeah, I believe before I found Christ and gave my life to God, I would try to lean on my own understanding, and that's a... The universe is like a, a black hole of information. L-
- JRJoe Rogan
What do you mean by your own understanding?
- KWKanye West
Meaning when people ask, Einstein said, "You're the smartest person. What would you like to know?" He, his, eh, Einstein's response was, "I'd like to understand the mind of God," mean, meaning God is all-knowing and we can only know or see, and for me as a visionary, we can only know or see what God allows us to see and what he feels we're ready to see and understand t- to maximize what our Maslow's Hierarchy of Need chart is. You know, what sets our dopamines, what sets our serotonins off, what makes us feel good-
- JRJoe Rogan
Mm-hmm.
- KWKanye West
... basically, like, you know, we, we did a good deed and it's like, it was somehow w- you know, you know, just doing a beat for a famous per- or just doing a beat for, um, a local dope rapper really meant a lot to me when I was 14 years old. Doing a beat for just anyone famous that had a major record deal was a lot to me at age 19. Me being able to, you know, put out my own music and put my own hours a lot to me at age 24, meaning as I grow, God sets new stages in the game of life for me that you get your satisfaction. Like, Maslow's Hierarchy of Need is like our satisfaction chart, what makes us feel whole and, uh, accomplished as a, as a, as a human being. So, as I go through these different levels, there's times where I would use confidence when I knew what I was doing, and I would use arrogance when I didn't know what I was doing, but I'd rather use arrogance than to let someone d- uh, diminish my idea of myself because that is what keeps us going. Hope actually keeps us alive. Anybody you ask, most people are like, "Do you want tomorrow to come?" And they say, "Yes," they, they have, they have hope for it, but I went from having confidence and arrogance to having faith, and faith is the opposite of fear. And that created this fearless approach that I have, and that's what made... now has made me the fearless leader that I am, that I've, like, crystallized into the leader that my mom always knew I would be when kids followed me in preschool, the leader that people saw when we changed The Sound of Music, the leader when we changed, uh, the, the, the sneaker industry, the leader in what we're doing with, uh, with farming and with, with shelters. When I was building, you know, the homeless shelters, uh, a, a couple years ago and visiting parks and, and then going to skid row and understanding the, uh, uh, the dy- dy- dynamics and empathizing what, what actual mental health issues are, not someone, you know, telling their truth or being exhausted and then being labeled as such. Like, I am... Yeah.
- JRJoe Rogan
So, that's what you felt happened to you-
- KWKanye West
Absolutely.
- JRJoe Rogan
... like you were telling the truth and you were exhausted and they labeled you as mentally unhealthy?
- KWKanye West
Yes, absolutely.
- JRJoe Rogan
Am I saying this right, that-
- KWKanye West
Yeah.
- JRJoe Rogan
... what happened with you is you feel like maybe, or y- you probably feel like, that having this higher calling and recognizing this higher power was the, the glue that kept your thoughts together, it kept your mind straight, and it kept you on a righteous path?
- KWKanye West
Yeah.
- JRJoe Rogan
So instead of being scattered with all these crazy thoughts and being exhausted and being labeled manic, right?
- KWKanye West
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
- 1:00:28 – 1:11:51
Abortion, family trauma, and “Plan A” as cultural alternative
- KWKanye West
You know, what I love is ... There was, uh, some perspectives that people showed about what a true manic episode really looks like after I was in South Carolina. And this one guy was talking about his mom being in an episode and kidnapping his brother and, you know, like proper extreme cases. You know, I cried and was gut-wrenched, like, at the ... I don't even like to say out loud what I s- what I said on South Carolina, but the idea of, you know ... Hmm. I'm just trying to word it in a way that's really safe and covers my family. Um, uh, well, f- ... People saw this clip of me crying. Some people didn't know what I was crying about, but I was crying about that there was a, a possible chance ...... you, I'm just, I'm looking at a way to say this and mightily ap-
- JRJoe Rogan
I know what you're s- I know what you're gonna say.
- KWKanye West
-oss, that there was a chance that, you know, that we didn't make, that Kim and I didn't make the family we have today. I wi- that's my-
- JRJoe Rogan
Yes.
- KWKanye West
... that's my most, like, uh, family friendly, you know, way to word that. And just the idea of it just tears me up inside that I was a part of a culture that promotes this kind of thing. Like, one of the, uh, major statistics on the subject of life is, um, that the greatest advocates for, um, the A, the A word, is, are men from ages 31 to 37, and that's how old I was. And I felt like I was too busy, my dad felt like he was too busy for me, and we have a culture of that. And they have, uh, child rebel soldiers, uh, uh, that were in Africa that would be doped up and psyched out and made to kill their parents. Where, well, in our culture, we're doped up and psyched out and made to kill our children. You know, we have to decouple the conversation of, uh, Planned Parenthood and woman's choice. Now, so of course, I'm Christian, so I'm pro-life, um, and when I go into office, I'm not changing laws because I realize we live in an imperfect world and an imperfect society. What I will be presenting is a plan A, and we, we've already started to work on plan A to change the connotation of orphanages, to change the connotation of foster care. And not just change the connotation, you know, verbally, but to create places that are to the level of, like, the Iman, Gary, and Dizzy World had a, had a kid. You know, what is this like? And we have so much land that this can be created and then spread across the world to orphanages in Africa and in China, and just, um, uh, across the globe to, to create these environments that when there's expecting families, moms and fathers, that they feel like there's a place, even if they don't feel well off enough to bring another life into this world, that there's a place to go, there's a plan A. Uh, because, uh, plan B and Planned Parenthood were planned by a eugenics that set out and said out loud, "I'm doing this to kill the Black race and to create population control." You know, if we had-
- JRJoe Rogan
Wait a minute. What, what are you saying? P- plan B, meaning the, the pill, meaning the, uh, the, the morning after pill?
- KWKanye West
You know what? Let me-
- JRJoe Rogan
And Planned Parenthood?
- KWKanye West
Let me, let me, let me decouple those things.
- JRJoe Rogan
Okay.
- KWKanye West
Let me, let me talk about Planned Parenthood.
- JRJoe Rogan
Okay.
- KWKanye West
There's ... The last figure I saw was there were 210,000 deaths due to COVID in America. And everywhere you go, you see someone with a mask on. With A, the A word, A culture, uh, I'll say it one time, with abortion culture, there are 1,000 Black children aborted a day, daily. We are in genocide. We ... So more Black children have died in the past, since February than people have died of COVID, and everyone wears a mask. So it's a matter of where are we turning a blind eye to? Like, the media can control, a lot of times, or has controlled what we care about. I even heard somebody say at one point, this is the actual sentence I heard someone say, "Puerto Rico is so played out." Meaning there was a time where people were caring about it, and now the media says don't care about it, but these people, it still hasn't been solved. The, the, the hurricanes still hit, the earthquakes still hitting, people are still suffering from that, and no one has really gone to fix it. And when that 11 billion goes to Haiti and it doesn't get to the people, you know, the Daily Mail post a, a swimsuit pic or something, and de- ch- de- uh, deters our energy to what we have to do collectively to, to, to s- to help our brothers and sisters. You know, I look at society as, as one body. I want, I wanna just go into this riff, 'cause my thoughts are like these clouds in Mario Brothers, and I'll jump to this and I'll see another one, I'll jump to another one, it's like, oh, yes. I'll jump to another. I need to express this, uh, this story. I believe that, you know, love will heal all, and we have to look at... I believe, I believe that world peace is possible, and I believe it's us looking at each other as a moment in time. Time is love. You love the things you put time into. That's what I meant time is love. Like, 'cause this is, like, uh, this intangible thing, this thing you can't grab. You can't just grab time in your hand, you can't grab love in your hand, but, but we feel both of these things are real. For us to love one another, just as simple as that, like, love will heal the world, this is what it's gonna take to heal the world, but we have a competitive spirit. We like having a bad guy. We like having a competitor. So what-... we need to do is change the bad guy, change the competitor. Make the competitor be the Roman era, the Roman civilization. Make the, uh, competitor be the Egyptian kingdom and say, "We're the first society, we're the first civilization that ever became civil." Because we are still just as much in the Dark Ages as medieval times, or as Game of Thrones (laughs) , you know, level, uh, Black Mirror level... I, I know I went past future other dimension for a second, but we kill each other. We kill each other on social media, we kill each other in high schools, like, in the way w- that we talk to each other, we, we, we physically kill each other in our own neighborhoods and outside of neighborhoods. You know, this planet, when we, when we keep turning a blind eye to our brothers and our sisters and our family, which is us as a whole, as all of humanity, then of course it's gonna get to the point where there's, you know, homeless sleeping under, you know, a, um, a bridge in Calabasas. Because we ignored the homeless person sleeping in front of the Gucci store. How do you, how is this... Just look at that visual. It's a homeless person sleeping in front of the Gucci store. We have builders, we have people who know how to make communities, we have people who know how to cook and how to make food, and how to, um, h- how to bring this food. People are fighting over land and not really realizing that we're not, uh, we're not maximizing our resources and our existence. We've got genius-level scientists, we've got people who rogue, uh, you know, people who have, uh, broken out of the chains like Elon. Like, imagine if Elon was working at GM on the third floor somewhere. You know, we wouldn't have electric cars, we wouldn't have that new Porsche hybrid, we wouldn't have, uh, uh, what, what's happening with, you know, Hyperloop. Imagine if the guy that, uh, you know, started Airbnb, uh, uh, was shut down, or the guys who started Uber were shut down. All of these people who break away and then create the new society and the next frontier of where we're going. People... Like I've said, like, it feels to me like MIT is a place that has to be funded by people who wanna take the smartest people on the planet and make them work on the smallest things that won't change anything. And I've talked to people from MIT and I could look at these bril- like, this brilliant person I was talking from MIT, uh, and he was, he was afraid. Everything was fear, everything was about, "His, his girlfriend's pregnant and, you know, we just got a house and I don't wanna do anything to change this." And I... And this is, like, one of the most brilliant people on the planet, but if you mix brilliance with bravery that we can ignite something. Even this conversation alone can ignite the people that are going to change the world, because there's people who have been anointed. You can't teach the brilliance and the anointings, there's people who hit the game of life and they've got something that they're gonna do no matter what school they go to. They know, just, they just know how to do it. They knew how to do it before they got here and they were gonna do it. And these people just need to see what it looks like to overcome, uh, the smokescreens of public humiliation, of bankruptcy, I was in debt, uh, the fear of loss, I lost my mom, or the fear of death. You know, what other fears, uh, are there? There's a lot of fears. But the thing is, when you remove, like even in the schools, you remove prayer, you remove God, you remove the fear of God, you create the possibility
- 1:11:51 – 1:21:35
Fear, doubt, and the ‘missing banister’ theory—how anxiety shapes outcomes
- KWKanye West
or the fear of everything else. But watch this. If you instill the fear of God, you eliminate the fear of anything else.
- JRJoe Rogan
Mm-hmm.
- KWKanye West
And it's not that I am fearless. I am deathly, literally deathly (laughs) shaking and in so much fear of my Father. I fear God and I don't fear nothing else.
- JRJoe Rogan
There's some power to that, right?
- KWKanye West
(laughs)
- JRJoe Rogan
Like, the, just as a mental management tool, there's some real power to that, because so many people are afraid of every single little-
- KWKanye West
Yeah.
- JRJoe Rogan
... aspect of life. Bills and debt and love and relationships, and if you have a higher power, and this is one of the things that I've always said about it-
- KWKanye West
W- what's the main, what's the main word that you use even for fear? This is the main disease that, that people use in politics, it's the main... Fear is it, but it's a main word.
- JRJoe Rogan
Mm-hmm.
- KWKanye West
It's the disease attacking the world, because it, it, it, it, it destroys your, it changes your posture-
- JRJoe Rogan
Yes, yes.
- KWKanye West
... it changes your idea.
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah.
- KWKanye West
It's worry.
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah.
- KWKanye West
Worry.
- JRJoe Rogan
Anxiety.
- KWKanye West
Yeah, anxiety. That's-
- JRJoe Rogan
Stress.
- KWKanye West
That's what it is. Stress. Like, it can kill you.
- JRJoe Rogan
You can't be free. You can't-
- KWKanye West
Yeah.
- JRJoe Rogan
... be free to take chances.
- KWKanye West
To be worried about stuff.
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah.
- KWKanye West
Like, and I-
- JRJoe Rogan
Yes.
- KWKanye West
Yeah. So, to be able to anchor and eliminate worry and say, "This, I am walking in a righteous path and I don't have to worry about anything." I don't have to worry about going to jail, I don't have to worry about being killed, I don't have to worry about bankruptcy, I don't have to worry about, um, you know, uh, uh, humiliation. You know, 'cause this comes, this is where smart aleck prayers can get you. I u- I used to have this really smart aleck prayer I said, "God, deliver me from pain." And then he took my mom.So, it's hard to hurt that much-
- JRJoe Rogan
Mm.
- 1:21:35 – 1:47:56
Design, products, and industry disruption: Yeezy, Foam Runner, and minimalist essentials
- KWKanye West
Uh, like Tesla was, you know, a, a, a, a white guy that was a, a ladies' man, and he would be going to all the, like, fancy events and everything, and... Like, he stopped having sex at age 40-
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah.
- KWKanye West
... and, and said, "And now I'm gonna focus on this." And, and I mean, he died, he died penniless at the end. You know, I'm not gonna say, like, he turned evil, but he's trying to sell a bomb, and he had all these, like, answers, uh, that would change the construct of society. And my best example is, like, Kodak is... They're in a place where they can barely pull it together now, but they invented the digital camera, and they didn't bring it to market because, um, because, um, they had all this film to sell. But one of the things that's really, you know, that's a challenge for me is, you know, I've, I, I designed this thing, this... We call it the Foam Runner, and we built a factory for it in Cody. And you can make these, uh, in 25 minutes. And what I'm saying about design, I was talking to one of the just awesome designers that we just, uh, uh, uh, got over at Yeezy. We got, like, this amazing crew. We got guys that Nike sued us for, and one of these guys, I was trying to hire him for two years. He had to g- he had a non-compete. He had to go surf (laughs) for a year, and now he's in. And when he, like, you know, does his, um, his, uh, CAD drawings, it's almost like one shot, one kill. You know, sometimes you design stuff, you gotta do it like five, eight times. Like, his first one is so close to being ready to go to market because he sketches in a certain kind of way. And for the longest, we said, you know, "Let's..." Um, uh, I've been saying I wanna get rid of laces, and we still have shoes we sell with laces because it's a popular shoe, and people love this shoe, and it, it hurts me. I feel like Steve Jobs trying to, like, remove buttons off the side of the next Apple. And one of the things that's interesting about this, if you look at most sneakers, if you look at you guys' sneakers right now, you have a tongue, you know, and it, it goes this direction.
- JRJoe Rogan
Mm-hmm.
- KWKanye West
This is one of the innovations about... This is one of the reason why this is one of the most important sneaker designs, is this goes this way because it's ergonomic. And I remember putting it on and being uncomfortable with wearing it 'cause I'm so used to, like, the way, like, a Jordan or something fits with my jeans, and I remember talking to Kobe and him talking about having to make sneakers that fit with jeans, and that was a big thing because, you know, that's what we grow up.
- JRJoe Rogan
Mm-hmm.
- KWKanye West
We grow up wearing, you know, Karl Kani jeans and Jordans or something like that. So, um, this also... I feel that just the process, when I design, I become like a three-year-old. I have to go to my gut. I have to forget everything I know and really focus in to what I feel, like some straight Jedi Yoda or like... You know, if I could grab that water bottle and like (mimics magnetic noise) . Like, wouldn't have been cool if I just did it right now?
- JRJoe Rogan
(laughs)
- KWKanye West
I should've had a magnet (laughs) on there that you'd be like, you'd be like, "Yo, this dude is a wizard." Um, so... (laughs)
- JRJoe Rogan
(laughs)
- KWKanye West
So, so for me, you know, I, I'm gonna make this shoe be $20. And, you know, money isn't real, so that means the world should be eventually free. So I'm gonna manifest the world being free. My dad, uh, he lives in the DR, and he says, "You know, anything that you put in the ground grows, so why do people still go hungry?" And I, I like that in theory, but then I was like, "Man, farming is really hard though, man. I think, you know, I might go hungry (laughs) if I have someone to farm this food." And it's like... But, you know, back in the days, we, we, we had that skill set. Now, we're losing these skill sets that actually we can sustain off of. Uh, so with this, uh... And I, I love giving you guys my riffs. I'm like a human version of Instagram. When you look at Instagram-
- JRJoe Rogan
(laughs)
- KWKanye West
... you look at... You know, you're looking at like 100 images a day. Uh, well, I've got millions of images in my mind, and the majority of them haven't been realized yet.... you know? There's some-
- JRJoe Rogan
Mm-hmm.
- KWKanye West
... images that are from my memory, but I got this whole the future (laughs) that's in my mind-
- JRJoe Rogan
Right.
- KWKanye West
... that has to be brought. So, this is... You know, we talk about hype culture and shoes being sold on the, you know, on the resale market. And Yeezy lives in that place, but, uh, I... You know, I don't like the idea, I don't love the idea that some of the reason why people buy it is just, uh, for hype culture, or you ain't got this, or I got this colorway and you don't have it, that type of mentality. I'm an es- I'm an essentialist. I'm a, I'm a minimalist and, like, I, I, I have to, I will bring the, the fully A to Z, our existence version to existence. Like, Victor Gruen designed the shopping centers, but he designed full utopian communities and people were like, "Uh, we're, we're just cool with the shopping center. That's all we want." And these ideas that he had never got brought into fruition. A little bit like Disney kinda based EPCOT Center on, like, on Victor Gruen, but these... This, this next frontier of these communities and villages of happiness are way closer to a Kenyan village than it is to, like, a, a gated community, uh, village. Um...
Episode duration: 2:57:28
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Transcript of episode qxOeWuAHOiw
