Kanye West Says Michelangelo & DaVinci Would Be Making Sneakers if They Were Alive Today

During New York Fashion Week, Kanye West returned with Yeezy Season 2. Just like his previous collections, the reviews were mixed. And because the rapper’s enjoys using words to explicitly make his point, instead of letting his work speak for itself, he spoke with Vanity Fair. Here, his interview with Dirk Standen elucidates his views on sweatshirts, politics, and North West.

Despite being added to the NYFW schedule late, he started working on Season 2 the second the curtain closed on Season 1. Working at his office in Calabasas, Calif., his team — he has separate ones for music, fashion, and even lighting — worked nonstop. “I slept at the studio and I would have dreams or nightmares about the look board.”

He’s working on music (a sample track, “Fade,” played during the runway show) but it might be another year. “I’m not worried about the years. I’m worried about the life and the body of work that I can put out while I’m breathing.” His music is like a “sonic landscape, a two-year painting.” “Fade” was played “to let people get a glimpse at the painting.”

Get the ballots ready: Kanye 2020 is “definitely” real (but he hates politics). Instead, his platform will be based on truthfulness, creativity, design, data, and execution. “I just want everyone to win, that’s all I can say, and I think we can… . I think the words “dreamer” and “passionate” diminish my will to execute.”

The decision to run wasn’t made lightly. “I didn’t approach that because I thought it would be fun. It wasn’t like, Oh, let’s go rent some jet skis in Hawaii. No, the exact opposite. I sit in clubs and I’m like, Wow, I’ve got five years before I go and run for office and I’ve got a lot of research to do, I’ve got a lot of growing up to do.”

He’s basically Benjamin Button, or North West’s baby brother. “I almost feel I’m growing just like my daughter. I hear my daughter start to say exactly what she wants and to finish sentences and I think it’s like that. Like, maybe I got to finish a couple more sentences in the second one than in the first one.” At the end of the day, he said, “I’m just simply an artist trying to express myself, trying to finish my sentences just like my daughter can.”

And took inspiration from her toys. “We talked about Legos before, the Lego story when they figured out how to make however many combinations out of six pieces. They’re the kind of things we narrowed down to show. What are pieces that you have to have in your wardrobe?”

Seriously, he’s like Freud’s greatest dream. “My mom has a PhD, she used to work at Operation PUSH. Somehow the more and more creative I get, the closer and closer I get to who I was as a child. When I was a child, I was holding my mom’s hand at Operation PUSH. I think it’s time.” he said. “With all the things I’ve done that people would consider to be accomplishments, what’s the point where I become the person that Donda and Raymond West raised? My parents’ child.”

Sometimes he feels like Buddy the Elf. “A lot of times I feel like Will Ferrell in the movie Elf. You know this big guy that wants to [join in] and his hands are a little bit too big… . I could just say please forgive me if I ever step on any toes, because there’s nothing that I would ever want to do or say that would take away from any designer, that would take away from anyone’s work or what they’re working so hard on.”

He’s not racist, he’s an artist. The Yeezy Season 2 models were lined up according to skin color, which angered many, accusing the rapper of being racist. “It was only colors of human beings and the way these palettes of people work together and really just stressing the importance of color, the importance of that to our sanity, these Zen, monochrome palettes.” His inspiration was Claudio Silvestrin and wants the alignment to be taken as “more of a moving painting than a political statement or a fashion statement.”

He’s wants to innovate sportswear like ancient civilizations. “Sportswear is less than 100 years old, so we are in the middle of the expression right now for what this will say for human existence,” he said. “There’s something that the Romans, they presented, that the Egyptians, they presented.”

Sweatshirts are the greatest article of clothing of all time. “Sweatshirts are f***ing important. That might sound like the funniest quote ever. How can you say all this stuff about running for president in 2020 and then say sweatshirts are important? But they are. Just mark my words. Mark my words like Mark Twain.”

Those bodysuits are Kanye’s expression of how he believes people want to dress. “I think people just wear yoga pants and sweatshirts, and I wanted to make the most beautiful version of that possible.”

Even though there are “really amazing sales online,” West will fulfill his dream of having multiple Yeezy stores. “This season I could see the store. I always envision this store where the colors are hung on the racks like a group of flowers,” he noted, adding that his inspiration also came from Dries Van Noten’s garden. “I was just wanting the colors to fit together in this way, like where my daughter takes the four Play-Dohs and starts to blend them all up together. I can smell the store right now. I can see the wood in my head, this beat-up wood. I can feel the energy of the space.”

But there aren’t any concrete plans yet. “The only concrete plan is that I plan to use concrete.”

He’s the 2015 equivalent of Michelangelo or Da Vinci. “I think if Michelangelo was alive or Da Vinci was alive, there’s no way that they wouldn’t be working with shoes, as a part of what they work on. Definitely one of the things they’d work on would be shoes. I’ve gone three years without a phone. I don’t go a day without shoes.”

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