Kanye 'Ye' West Interview | Lex Fridman Podcast #332

- The following is a conversation with Ye, the legendary artist, producer, and designer, formerly known as Kanye West, on this, the Lex Fridman podcast.

- Based off of our connection and just you being a friend, I need to show you my two tech companies and get your perspective on it 'cause now I have friends that can give a perspective. Like when I would work on albums, I had other friends that worked on albums and they would give me their perspectives on it.

- You wanna do this?

- [Ye] We are doing it. This is part of it.

- This is part of it?

- Absolutely.

- [Lex] All right, beautiful.

- Oh, well, I wanted to finish. The thing is, okay, you're gonna ask me different questions, but I'm about growing and building and bringing the idea to life. So when I see you, I say, "Oh, this guy understands how to hire engineers." Where I'm coming from, coming from Hollywood, coming from press, coming from media, all of the guys, you know, that so many of the guys that have been like voices and faces and talking heads, whatever, have not understood how to engineer product.

- And that's the reason why I was able to jump past everyone in the entertainment field and become, you know, whatever the net worth is, 11 billion. I'ma stop putting the whole Black thing on my worth. Like let's just see where I am on the scale of life. Because that's a cop out for me to say, "Richest Black guy of all time." Because that's feeding into the same, you know, trauma economy that Black Lives Matter feeds into.

- That's why I love and respect engineers. That's the only thing that we really need to teach in school is engineering. We don't need to teach history. We don't need to teach anything that is subjective. It needs to only be engineering, taught in school, and everything else needs to be recessed. Nothing at all, any forced subjective information is just to weaken and indoctrinate our species. And that's what schools do now.

- As an engineer, I love hearing you say that, but to push back, history is not... The interpretation of history might be subjective, but history has some facts, and they're useful to give a grounding to the way you do engineering.

- I don't 100% believe in anything, any concept of the future or any concept of history because history was just written by the victors.

- Yeah, that's right.

- So if I see stuff happen on the day that later that day is reported wrong. So how wrong is something reported a thousand years ago and why would we argue about something that's not in the now? Because that's the only thing that everyone can agree upon is that it is now right now.

- Yeah. Well, you try not to make the mistakes of the past. That's the usefulness of history. The limited usefulness of history.

- The biggest mistake from the past that we keep making is looking at the past.

- Too much. Giving too much value to the past.

- Too much value to the past. We are now. We are now, we are here. We are one species, we are one race, we're here. And it's time. And the leadership is changing because you have Elon as a leader, Ye as a leader. And we are the top leaders. We're more influential than the presidents.

- So you're a human being with engineering challenges before you, with a Stem Player, with Parler, what's the hardest thing in front of you on the engineering front?

- That's the first sentence that any of our species needs to hear when they're born. You are a human being with engineering challenges, and I consider challenges to be opportunities in front of you.

- [Lex] Yeah.

- Literally, like let me see a piece, I need to write that down. That's the beginning-

- [Lex] That's a good line.

- Of our new species constitution. (Lex and Ye laughing) I'ma do the paper like this wide.

- [Lex] Yeah, yeah, yeah.

- Put it in wide screen. This for Ridley. You are... No, let me like, you are a being -

- [Lex] Yeah.

- With engineering.

- [Lex] Opportunities or challenges?

- Opportunities. I'm sorry, I don't spell as good as John Legend. (Lex laughs) Opportunities, and before you. I like the before 'cause it actually can mean forward or before you. This right here, I've always said, "I'm the top five writer in human existence." But like this right here is pushing me to like number four, number three.

- (laughs) It's a good line.

- Because who would you say is the top writer in human existence? And we know who it is.

- That's subjective. Who's that?

- It's factual though.

- [Lex] Who's that?

- It's like, okay, who's the top person in tech history? It's not subjective.

- Well-

- There's a non-subjective answer to both of those. Both of those people have influence, 30% of our existence.

- So the influence is the main metric of greatness.

- Okay, one person.

- [Lex] Yeah, yeah.

- 30% of our language was... The English language was written by them. The other person, 30% of the products we used was led by them, so-

- 30% of our language was written by... Oh, Shakespeare.

- [Ye] And then it was-

- And then the product, product, product, product.

- Look, look.

- Steve Jobs.

- [Ye] Yeah.

- You put Steve above like Elons of the world? 'Cause Steve is a designer. He's a designer and engineer, but he's a designer, he's a visionary in the design space.

- Well, I would lean to him because I'm not an engineer, right? So I'm more like-

- Then you're an engineer. If Steve is an engineer, you're an engineer, essentially.

- He's a cultural engineer. Like the people who run the emotions of the world and run the world off of people's emotions right now are social engineers. And social engineering is so important, like city design. There's a fancier word for that. But I was in Oxner last night to see Anthony Jeselnik, and I gotta find out what his opening joke was because I'm doing interviews and I'm thinking I'm funny. And I like that he said, he just kept on saying, "20-year... I've been doing this for 20 years." And his opening joke was so high level, I realized that I wasn't funny. I realized that this dude is a professional at what he does, and so many things are subjective.

- I always talk about this. It's like, you know, and people are arguing like, "Is Emily Ratajkowski the hottest, you know, person?" And I'm like, "That's such a subjective thing." But like, if you go and shoot three-pointers with Steph Curry, it's not subjective, right? Or if you go and compare bank accounts with Elon, it's not subjective. And another thing that's not subjective, porn.

- What about it?

- Dick size. It's not subjective. You can measure. (Lex and Ye laughing)

- But porn is more than just dick size, and greatness is more than the size of the bank account, right? So there's a subjective on-

- Well, greatness is subjective though.

- Right. So do you care about the stuff that's objective or subjective more? 'Cause greatness to me is what matters. The bank account comes and goes. The impact on our society, like you said, social engineering, the impact on the collective intelligence of our species, that what permeates throughout the rest of the time.

- I like what you said, "The impact." I'm taking notes. What did you say? The impact on-

- On the collective intelligence of our species.

- The impact on the collective intelligence.

- When Ye is writing down the words that came outta my dumb mouth, I have made it in life. (Ye chuckles) (Lex laughs)

- There's a lot of people that have kinda like sat through. I wanted to wear a different colored hoodie 'cause I was just tired of seeing this hoodie on all the interviews, and there's a lot of kids that are with me. They see what I'm saying.

- [Lex] Yeah.

- And they had to sit through all of the muck of all the previous interviews to get to this. Every interview has been just an emotional... It's just like been an argument up to this point. This is the first of... This is the next frontier of where our species is gonna head. It starts here, it starts with you, Lex.

- So this is the first time I heard you say the word engineering at least so many times, which I love hearing. So this is where you're at. You're like that newborn, you're a being with engineering opportunities.

- Yeah. And we're all a newborn. 'Cause then Christianity would say, "Born again." We're all newborns, and everyone shall, I don't like the word can, shall, the only thing about shall, it's like, it kinda dictates, and can kinda lets people off the hook. So I haven't found the perfect post-Shakespeare and post-Steve Jobs and post-Elon and post-Ye and post-Drake way to communicate this. But we update and we do.

- And what the current media structure... No, actually, nothing that's holding us. There's nothing actually holding us back because I'm still alive.

- ♪ I'm still alive ♪

- Like they could have (Lex laughs) killed me at, you know, George Bush don't care about Black people. They could have killed me at Beyonce had the best video. But we're here now. So we just keep on leaning and leaning and leaning.

- And there's these things where I just think about, you know, there'll be times when I'm at war, and every now and then when the bomb stopped going off and all the headlines and the smearing, and all that stuff going off, I think about my family and I'll think about Kim, and I'll think about how, you know, King Koopa has her in the castle right now.

- And just on Mario Brothers, you know how it is, go for the princess and you get to this level, and it's like (imitates upbeat game music). I'm like,

- [Lex] Yeah.

- I sung the song wrong, right? And then they take the princess again.

- [Lex] Which one are you? Mario?

- Yeah.

- What's your favorite thing, the thing you love the most about Kim from a Mario perspective and the princess? Looking back, was there a moment?

- She's definitely my favorite of all time.

- Yeah. Was there a moment, you know, like that catches you off guard and you say, "I love this human being."

- Yeah. I mean, it's just the DNA is like, she's a mix of Rob and Kris.

- [Lex] Can you explain?

- I mean, that's like a really high pool right there. (Ye chuckles) Those are like two geniuses. (Ye laughs)

- So, okay. So like the entire of history of evolution of the human species created this DNA that created this being, there's a life there. There's a set of memories in the history that brought you together and you're like, "Damn, I like this DNA." (laughs)

- Yeah. And certain people have just like high DNA. Ivanka Trump has high DNA. You know, it's like-

- How's your DNA? Pretty good?

- I think we've seen that. It's been proven. (Lex and Ye laughing) I mean, but look at my mom and look at my dad. You know, me and my dad have a water purification center in the DR right now, and my dad is the original Steve Jobs, and he was blocked by people around him.

- And people were using him and taking advantage and, you know, not believing in his vision. My dad's the educated version of Ye.

- What'd you learn about life from your dad?

- And my dad got girls too.

- But those are small details.

- That's a big detail, being that I found my dad's, you know, Playboy when I was five years old. It greatly affected my motivation.

- Yeah. Okay, so that's part of the engine that drives Ye.

- Absolutely. I remember when Pharrell was first in all the videos, and my girl was like, "Girls like Pharrell." And I was like, "I want girls to like me too."

- Funny that that's behind all the ambition, all the drive.

- Was how we make people. That's how people are made.

- It's the desire to be loved. Is that at the individual level just being noticed and also at the societal level of scale?

- Well, now, I've gone past, I'm like at that place where Nikolai Tesla was, later into his career, where it wasn't about being loved. It wasn't about sitting at the dinner parties next to Anna Wintour and stuff. It was about getting the idea across.

- So I have these cells that are very, and I just keep on saying, "Ridley Scott," but Ridley Scott has a special anointing. It isn't just sci-fi what he's doing. There's something in there, just like George Lucas. There's something different that's there, so...

- What are you drawing?

- I'm drawing these new living cells that we will exist in, and this is over... Okay, let's do like... I don't like talking about money because like, man made money up anyways. It's like four quadrillion respected dollars, and then you have other forms of currency.

- Of course, social currency is super important right now, but this is a drawing, and it's at a pretty good place. Now, this be 40,000 square feet. I wanna start just talking in meters. I just think we should go to anything to restore the "Tower of Basel."

- Like they said when the... I'ma just draw a person here for scale.

- [Lex] Yeah, that would help.

- Okay. What do you think of that? Look at my person. See the scale in this room? (paper rustles) All right, so...

- [Lex] Wait, the dot is the person?

- Yeah, I'm saying, it's 40,000 square feet, but that would be like...

- What are the other parts of the cell?

- Okay, so it's a screen. It doesn't go all the way to the top, and it's one hole for light, but the water and the light and air all come in from the top. So that's like the mouth. And then this is the belly button. We're God's iPhone, we're His greatest creation.

- So this is all connected? These are all connected?

- Yeah, so I'm drawing how these other cells go next to each other.

- What's the vision here?

- Happiness. Then we talk about like, "What's the motivation?" Like, yeah, there's a motivation somewhere in the back of my mind of my family.

- And if it's like where Moses smited the rock, and God didn't allow him to get to the promised land because the promised land is family. That is the problem. That is Earth. I mean, that is heaven on Earth is family. Family is heaven, that's the promised land, and for your family to be together.

- So say I smite the rock and God doesn't let me have my family back. My mission in life is still to promote families at all costs and make families' existence easier.

- So you take this thing, you put a localized farm. Say if it's in community that we do localized growing, and then we partner with big pharma, and say, "Hey, you're actually gonna make more money by making better food."

- 'Cause at the end of the day, you want money right now. It's like everyone knows that between the pesticides and between the medical industry and especially America, that we're keeping people sick.

- And we know that McDonald's makes food that kills people. And you know, Coca-Cola selling, you know, sugar water and all this. Like, just in case I haven't pissed off enough people in power.

- [Lex] Yeah.

- Okay, so... (laughs)

- You're gonna off the sugar, anybody that's powered on sugar.

- Well, sugar, health was actually documented on sugar. It wasn't about how bad meat was. It was like a reverse documentary on sugar, a reverse... I don't know if you call it a reverse, like a sub, but if you watch it again, when they show sugar and it's just the sugar looks super clean.

- [Lex] Yeah, it just-

- So as I state these things, I know I have protection. I have God's protection, that's why I'm here to this date, right? So it's for me to have this platform and express exactly what I feel because it's kids out there, right?

- It's kids that are gonna save the world through engineering and through facts. And I've gotta get download as much of the information and as much of the don't be afraid to state your facts is the biggest thing because the world is being ran by fear, and that is...

- No, actually, God runs the world, but there's just like little cloud, this patina of our ego that deals with the money and the car and the girl we're dating and all this in the clothes you wear and spending too much on clothes, and a lot of stuff that I've been involved with promoting.

- So now what I'm promoting is you have the idea, you say it out loud. Like if you had Tourette's, say your truth out loud. If you hate Ye, you hate me, say that out loud. Say whatever you feel out loud.

- Like you say it nonviolently, you know? Nonviolent, nonviolent, have to say that. Like, you know, as a shout out to Alex Jones, you know, and Trump where they try to say that when they say their truths out loud that it's inciting violence.

- So let's be like really clear. I'm saying that they have criminalized free thought. You know, they... I hate when people use they, like, they gets to blame for everything, right? It's always they.

- [Lex] Yeah.

- Who the fuck is they exactly?

- The problem is they is us.

- Yeah. Well, I love that. What we need to do is turn I to we, so we take the responsibility and turn they to us. So we take accountability to us, I to we and they to us.

- And that relates... It's a language at the same time. You're seeing the language of our surroundings. You're seeing the language of...

- One of the things, okay, let's go back to the cell explanation, because I'm also doing a... What's that thing when Elon just put all the information in the open and people could figure out if they could figure it out?

- And open source.

- [Lex] Yeah, open source.

- So I'm open sourcing this idea right now, so that, you know, engineers and anointed beings can collectively contribute to this to push our species forward.

- So where I've got to with my research is that there will be a hole at the top that allows natural light, natural air, and there's a constant water system.

- So it becomes like a water city where it's a constant flow that's not... It's regenerative. It's not wasting the water. And it's just a constant flow.

- So I put the toilet really close to where this, I don't wanna call it a wave pool, but in the pool, the water is not still.

- So that exists in water.

- [Ye] Yeah.

- Surrounded by water.

- Well, the living room is the... You have two rooms. You have the dry room, which people would call the living room before, and then you have the wet room.

- How is that a source of happiness? What is broken about our world today that that gives you in terms of the pursuit of happiness, which is one of the things-

- [Ye] Well, all of our buildings-

- In the previous Declaration of Independence?

- Yeah, all of our buildings are based on just the industry and the economy. And then people lean into what people are used to seeing, like what we think is attractive.

- 'Cause then you go back to the, you know, women who give life. So everyone wants to be attractive to the attractive.

- And that's the reason why the media goes and gets, you know, Bella Hadid, Kim Kardashian, Emily Ratajkowski, those are the only ones I'm gonna...

- [Lex] There's more.

- There's more. But I'm thinking of the ones that I think are attractive.

- Yeah, it is subjective.

- Yeah, 'cause it's subjective. So to my subjective, which I think the only guys that could argue with me on my opinion on girls would be Brad and Leo. Because we're the only ones with the track record, you know? Everything else... So for everybody else, it's subjective. We've got history, (laughs) so...

- Are you happy?

- Absolutely. I'm just here. It's actually... It's difficult to make me unhappy. Now I can deal with frustrations.

- But when those frustrations are it's like when you've allowed people to be in your life that shouldn't be there, and then they do the thing you knew they were gonna do and you're screaming at them, but you really need to scream at yourself.

- Yeah. So you realize anything that's like anger or frustration, that's something that's wrong with you that needs to be dealt with.

- Yes. Like right now. Okay, say I got this pattern cutter that I wanted to remove because I felt like she was copying our patterns into the computer, and I didn't know why she wanted to do that.

- And I just wanted to do the patterns by hand. And then, you know...

- You mean like automating the patterns? Is that what you mean?

- Yeah. And my head of a... Because that's the whole thing. It's like, it's a war of human beings and robots. It's like-

- Yeah. But that makes it more efficient, right? You don't like the efficiency, you like the creativity of the singular nature of the pattern.

- I believe that the human beings, and I'm saying this to you as a person who makes robots and a person who's friends with Elon.

- I'm deeply offended right now.

- [Ye] Yeah. (chuckles)

- But, you know, I'll let it go.

- [Ye] Okay.

- It's good.

- So yeah, I believe that the-

- Ye hates robots. I'm not gonna put that out there. It's a joke.

- Robots have feelings too.

- [Lex] Yeah, yeah, that's right.

- That was also a joke.

- Was it? We need to clarify that for future robots. (Ye laughs)

- But the pattern cutter. The pattern cutter, you don't like that? That had to be that that's... You can't have that part of your life.

- That's not what I'm... My everything that I'm doing is for the sake of the human race. There's things in capitalism, there's things in technology.

- Well, technology and original human species can exist in a peaceful way, as long as the people that know how to make robots aren't using their robots to control the humans, Lex.

- Definitely is something you have to be concerned about as we become more technologically savvy.

- That, my friend, is why engineering isn't everything that you have to desperately study the lessons of history. In Nazi Germany, science was used to create atrocities. Engineering, the same. Engineering could be a tool of war.

- We are still in the Holocaust. A Jewish friend of mine said, "Oh, go visit the Holocaust Museum." And my response was, "Let's visit our Holocaust museum, Planned Parenthood."

- With all due respect, I grew up in the Soviet Union. I'm Jewish. Parts of my family perished in the Holocaust of Nazi Germany. I have to push back that there is a difference of the atrocities at that scale, at that time on an entire people.

- I was gonna say the number, that's the difference.

- [Lex] It's not the number.

- Because six million will also... African Americans are actually Jew also, the lost tribe of Israel.

- I can push back on that too.

- Okay, so, well, (Lex laughs) everyone came from Africa.

- I'm African, I'm basically African American. We're brothers.

- And we're both Jew and we're brothers, so- (Lex laughs)

- We're human.

- Six million people died in the Holocaust. Over 20 million have died by the hands of abortion. And the media promotes the my body, my choice, which is actually still a promotion for Planned Parenthood.

- 50% of Black deaths a year is actually abortion. It's not the cop with the knee. It's not Black on Black violence and gang violence, it's not heart attacks. It's actually abortion. The most dangerous place for a Black person in America is in their mother's stomach.

- 900 to a million abortions in the United States a year. I hear you. But there's something about the rape, the torture, the murder of children, women, men, the complete humiliation, and just the suffering that was endured during World War II.

- That's what we deal with on our TVs right now with Black people. Soros would use Black trauma economy to win an election.

- What I love is having a healthy conversation, and as opposed to there's certain things, you know, boom, this drops, people gonna have pussy hats on. Boom, this drops, it's gonna be, you know, Black people and white people with signs. Boom, this drops.

- So, hey, China. Hey, left agenda. Hey, what we're gonna do is say that our species can have a healthy conversation.

- Can I just linger on this? Because when you say Jewish media, there's a echo of a pain that people feel that reminds an entire-

- You're saying it's redundant, right?

- Huh? No, I'm not saying it's redundant. I'm saying-

- I'm saying it's redundant.

- [Lex] You're saying it's redundant.

- It's a redundant statement.

- I'm saying that it's something that Joseph Goebbels, the propaganda minister of Nazi Germany, said. I'm saying it's been said so many times in order to murder and torture Jewish people that-

- [Ye] I would-

- It just rings wrong.

- [Ye] And that's the thing.

- Just like the N word when spoken by people that have the same skin color as me. It reminds people of a very dark time.

- I know. If Jewish people would accept that I'm Jew, then they would see what I'm saying in a different way. They would hear it in a different way.

- But see, the people, you saying you're Jewish, that-

- No, I'm Jew, not Jewish. Jewish means like that of a Jew. I'm saying I'm Jew.

- [Lex] You're Jew.

- Blood of Christ, Orthodox Christian.

- That comes from... Right. But are you a follower of the philosophy of the Black Hebrew Israelites? 'Cause that's where the idea comes from. Not all of those folks are extremists, but some are extremists.

- I'm a follower of the idea. I have a vague idea that all people came from Africa. But what I wanted to do...

- [Lex] Yeah.

- Now, okay, now I could Andy Kaufman this about seven more minutes.

- [Lex] Yeah.

- And then tell you what it is, what the count is.

- Should I count? Let's count, seven minutes.

- No, I'll-

- [Lex] Do less.

- I did this to do a spoiler alert.

- [Lex] Sure, spoiler.

- What's the first thing I said at the beginning?

- We're talking about engineering and humans. We're all human.

- And I said, and then what did I say we shouldn't focus on?

- [Lex] Race.

- Not just that. I said they shouldn't teach this in school.

- History.

- The history. Because what they do, what schools are doing is exactly what the CIA does with Pixar films and Disney films. They make Bambi's mom die in the beginning, right?

- And off that pain comes a purchase of ice cream. Off that pain comes, I need some more toys. Off that pain comes, I need a bigger house. Off that pain comes, I need more girls than my wife. Off that pain comes...

- So they put that pain in to make us... Now we're the orphans of capitalism. To make us be consumers. And we need to be a community, not just consumers.

- So I could have went another seven minutes.

- [Lex] Yeah.

- By being a person who presents himself in a way that says, "Well, I don't have to feel your pain because I also have pain too that's not being recognized."

- And in every interview when I say, "Well, why did I get to the point of putting up the tweet?" No one wants to understand why I got to that point, right?

- You had pain. You had pain.

- Yeah, but no one-

- You had pain in your heart.

- But let's say this, undoubtedly, Jewish people have a lot of movies about that pain, and Black people have a lot of movies about the pain of slavery, right?

- It's almost impossible to find a movie about Mansa Musa. When you go to the African history museum in Washington, DC, it doesn't start with the idea of Africans being kings. It starts with the idea of Africans being slaves.

- But here's another interesting point about this. This was said to me one time, and it stuck with me as a family member of mine. With Africans, how many times have you heard like a rapper, you know, talk about, "We were kings."

- That's incorrect, if we're Jew. If we're Jew and since we are, we weren't the kings, we were the slaves that Moses freed.

- Africans have always said... You've listened to rap music and hear Black people say, "We kings. We blood of the pharaohs."

- And if we are Jew, then we weren't. We were the people that Moses freed.

- And when we talk about, have you heard Black people talk about 400 years of slavery? All right, that is, and we're having this history lesson, right?

- I thought history doesn't matter. You're exploring ancient history and drawing deep wisdom from it.

- And at the same time saying, "We need to forget all of it." We need to put that behind us.

- Absolutely. We need to forget it and we need to move forward.

- There's so much wisdom to draw from history, even the 20th century. Look at this, communism. Without the lessons of history of the 20th century, communism sounds like a great idea, except that some of the worst atrocities conducted by Stalin and Mao that killed 5,000+ million people, not just killed, tortured, starvation, where people, the cannibalism, they ate each other, they ate their children.

- There's just dark... People should read some books on this, on the Holodomor in the 1930s.

- But I disagree.

- With that lesson, we would... And now it's becoming more popular, Marxism and communism.

- I'm not disagreeing that that happened. I'm disagreeing that we need to harp on the things that happened.

- Because the truth is, I'm given a fact, 50% today of, let's say, you don't call Black people Jew, right? Black people's deaths today is abortion. Today, right now.

- Like it's not racism. That's too wide of a term. It's genocide and population control that Black people are in today in America that is promoted by the music and the media that Black people make that Jewish record labels get paid off of, or media companies, record label's a media company also.

- So let's give it a wider, you know?

- I agree with Martin Luther King. I have a dream too.

- [Ye] Martin Luther King was-

- That one day, you would not be judged by the color of your skin or your race, Black or Jew, but by the content of your character.

- All the assholes that fucked you over in the music industry, fucked artists over in the music industry are individuals. They're not Jews.

- Can you-

- They are Jewish.

- They're human with opportunities, and they took those opportunities. I don't care if they're Jewish, Jew.

- Do you feel like I should release that pain and separate it?

- Yes.

- Okay. Okay, so if you're saying I should release that pain and separate it, then I'm telling you, you should release your pain and separate it.

- And we could get to this, the list of how you are a being with engineering opportunities.

- That's a hundred percent. I see what you're doing. That's exactly what you're doing. The pain, I'm gonna let it go, engineering challenges. I get it.

- One of the problems you highlight is people get fucked over in the music industry and get fucked over in the media. Get fucked over all over the place.

- They created, there was a Jewish trainer that brought me to the hospital and put in press that I went to the hospital.

- I know friends that off of exhaustion, a Jewish doctor. They diagnosed-

- Why do you keep saying Jewish?

- Because they were, right? Diagnosed me with bipolar disorder and shot me with medication and put me on medication, then put it in the press.

- And every time, even if I wore the wrong color hat that a nigger is not supposed to wear, right? Then they immediately say he's off of his shit, he's off his meds, he's off his rocker, and it's literally used as a scarlet letter control mechanism for the...

- People understand. The kids, the colleges, the high schools, what do you think they put me right now? They put me as the prophet, not the leader.

- It doesn't have to be the leader, right? 'Cause we need a more intelligent person to be the leader. But at least, right? They put me as the prophet.

- They put me as the only person that would say this. And I'm just saying, that was four Jewish members that controlled my voice because for the fact that 90% of Black people in entertainment from sports to music to acting are, in some way, tied into Jewish business people.

- Meaning that in some way, just like if Rom is sitting next to Obama or Jared sitting next to Trump, there's a Jewish person right there controlling the country, the Jewish people controlling who gets the best video or not, controlling what the media says about me.

- That's a person, not Jewish. Let me just say one thing.

- But they are though, that's the only thing. It just so happens that they are.

- [Lex] You saying it-

- That doesn't mean that I hate them.

- [Lex] Yes, yes.

- That just means that they are.

- But it's a dog whistle too. Let me just say.

- As I would love to add more love to the world, I would love you to do that as a person with a big voice, with a big powerful voice that a lot of people look up to.

- And when you say Jewish media, it's funny how this world works that way. When you say Jewish media or Jews are controlling the voice of Black artists, Black people, Black artists, when you say that-

- [Ye] Am I not allowed to say it out loud?

- You can say it. There's a large number of people that are hurting and have anger and even have hate in their heart.

- When they hear Jewish media, that hate starts being directed towards the Jewish people.

- Do you acknowledge that? Do you understand? Can you feel the hate in the world that comes to the surface when you say stuff like that?

- Okay. I feel that when we go into therapy, my dad was a therapist, and obviously, I've got some therapy skills myself.

- A lot of people, my music is healing. These type of spa-like existences are healing. The color palettes I use are healing, and we can use healing words, right?

- What I really feel, I feel that there's no accountability and no responsibility on Jewish people in media to at least start with owning up with the facts of what's dealt with.

- And tell me if I say the facts out loud to the point of Ari Emanuel writing a letter in the Financial Times, trying to take food outta my children's mouth, telling people that they're not allowed to work with me.

- Even Chris Cuomo or Piers Morgan getting me to apologize and separate Jewish business people from the families of the Jewish business people, which I did.

- Update, I did that. That already happened.

- And the way I-

- That was a shitty apology. That wasn't really an apology, but shout out for that conversation. Great conversation.

- I didn't get on my knees and kissed the dick of Howard Stern, and-

- You don't need to kiss anyone's dick, I don't think.

- But that's what you guys are acting like.

- You guys, look at that.

- Because you're talking about it as a shitty opinion, apology. But where's our fucking apology? Watch this.

- [Lex] Sorry.

- We don't get... Thank you. Now let's move on.

- Sorry. (Lex and Ye laughing)

- Oh, do I need to get on my knees or no?

- And kiss my dick!

- Oh shit. (Ye laughs) Just escalated quickly.

- So that's sexcalated quickly.

- [Lex] So what-

- No, I'm saying, where's our apology? Right? We can't get to apology because you're telling me there's no right way for me to word it.

- So tell me, for me, a person who's been fucked on my deals and a person that has friends that never figured out how to make shoes with a German company that couldn't tell me to wear a BLM shirt and take off my red hat.

- Like what would've happened if I was at Nike? Right? Tell me exactly how to engineer the situation I'm at.

- I'll tell you exactly how, you got a big voice. Have the balls as a man to call out the individuals.

- Don't call 'em Jews, call 'em by their name, and start a war against those individuals.

- They're not Jewish.

- But if that's the case, will you help me with that?

- Sure, 100%.

- [Ye] Okay.

- Assholes are... Well, let me like flip that too. I don't understand the industry well. I see that people are fucking people over for sure.

- But how do you solve that? If you, right now, run the world's... You're doing a million things, but say you ran also a record label.

- I have ran a record label. Well, I've been ran by a record label where I was the face of a record label and had Big Sean and different people complaining to me.

- And I knew fuck about running a record label. I was simply just a talented producer and an influencer -

- [Lex] Yes.

- That then started good music, but I wasn't the one running good music.

- How would you do it differently?

- This is something I propose. I would look at the top 10 execs in three fields in sports, film, and music.

- And I would look at the top 10 talent. I would look at the top talent in each of those fields, the top 10 of them.

- And some of 'em are gonna be Tom Brady. Some of 'em are gonna be Taylor Swift. Some of 'em, they're not all gonna be Black, right? Some of 'em.

- So some of 'em would be Adele, right? And we'll look at all their contracts transparently, and we'll compare the notes and re-engineer like it's a new constitution.

- [Lex] Yeah.

- Because when I told my dad when I was 19 that I was gonna get into the music industry, he begged me not to. He said, "I heard it's treacherous."

- Now I'm in a position where I've been through it, I saw it, I went out, made some money somewhere else. I saw my name get smeared. I saw my family get destroyed. I saw my reputation get destroyed.

- And now I'm back here to have this kinda... I'm back here as a being with engineering opportunities.

- [Lex] So...

- If you say it's a shitty apology, what is the version of the apology short of kissing Howard Stern's dick?

- I don't think anyone wants to kiss Howard Stern's dick.

- That's the whole point. Howard Stern, nobody wants to kiss your dick, so shut the fuck up.

- I said, and by the way, I'ma antagonize you, Howard Stern. I used to be a fan of you.

- Yeah, me too.

- Yeah.

- Still a fan sometimes.

- Now you're just doing clickbait like everybody else. Now you're just a sad old man, Howard.

- All right.

- Now, Howard Stern, this is the first time anyone's said your name in years, your own family doesn't say your name, unless they're calling to get their bills paid. (laughs)

- You're going hard. (laughs) I'm just kidding. See, that's beautiful right there. That's much better than calling Jewish media. Go after individuals.

- [Ye] Okay, so-

- Go after individuals. If you wanna talk about shit me, talk shit about me. This is great.

- And you know what that is?

- [Lex] Yeah, what's that?

- Engineering. That's the engineer's approach.

- Yeah, engineers. Yeah, yeah. You should learn some of that.

- We all can use our pain against each other,

- [Lex] Yeah.

- or we can say we're a being with engineering opportunities, and we can know about history.

- So let me change something. We can have a... Just to be judgemental, people say, "Thou shall not judge."

- I've was talking to Camille Vasquez, she says, "I'm very judgemental." That's what we're doing.

- I believe, now you could go to Bible, and one thing's gonna say one thing, another thing may be contradicted in a way.

- And then the pastor has to unpack it. I believe that we are to judge, if you look at some food and it's got a fly coming out of it, you can then judge at that point.

- You're supposed to use your better judgment.

- But whenever someone doesn't wanna change something they're doing, they'll say, "Don't judge me," right?

- But as a species, you call for me, you got the breakthrough.

- And by the way, it's only an engineer that I would respect.

- [Lex] Yeah.

- To tell me of how to update how I'm communicating.

- Because this started off, right? I've been through all these interviews.

- Let me go to this. You said this was a sorry apology. I was very specific. I said the Jewish... Because by the way, it's a barrage, right?

- It's a thing where I don't even remember the names at a certain point, right?

- It's like if a girl was getting raped by men, if that person's not 18, right?

- And she was getting raped since 14, right?

- And she still got this face, this super like Irina Shayk level face, right?

- She might say, "I hate men."

- That woman may say, "I hate men."

- She might get to that point because she was raped.

- On my contracts, and no one can say this is ramped up. Howard Stern can't say this is ramped up.

- Ari Emanuel knows well that I'm not ramped up.

- George Soros knows like, "Wow, this guy's like a younger guy that's looking at what I did and looking at how I control the world silently.

- And he's calling it out, and he's not using any of the fear tactics.

- I can't send his homeboys around him. I can't send his wife to him.

- This guy..." That's what George Soros sees, right?

- When he's dealing with me, right?

- So what you guys are actually asking me to do, I'm comparing myself to that 18-year-old beautiful woman that had been mistreated by men for four years of her life, right?

- And you're saying, you know, as a man, you can't blame all men.

- And I'm saying, as a responsible forward philosopher leader, okay, I'll drop the pain and I will specify because I'm a peer.

- I lost my fucking family, I lost my kids. I lost my best friend in fashion.

- I lost the Black community. You know, people said I lost my mind.

- All of these things. Lost my reputation.

- And I'm up here just like, I just want my family, but I don't want my family to have to say what the left wants us to say, to have to say what China wants us to say.

- I wanna be an American and protect my kids and protect my wife and raise my kids as Christians, and have my wife be a Christian and innovate, and America made rock and roll, I wanna innovate as a creative person and be a successful American.

- But all of that had been taken away from me.

- So I'm coming back, and I'm removing the PSTD right now, right?

- I'm standing up and saying, "The only way that we're gonna be able to get past this, and the way God is gonna use me right now is for me to stop talking about the pain.

- Stop talking about what happened and do something about it."

- And that's where I'm at right now in this moment.

- Like, yeah, people agree. At least there was something where you could say, "He has a reason of why he got to that tweet."

- And what you're doing for me today is saying, "Yo, that was a sorry apology, and let's specify."

- I'm not asking for anyone out here to empathize or sympathize for, you know, a dude worth $11 billion that can make money, I mean, appear outta thin air in five different industries, you know?

- I'm not asking for anybody to sympathize with someone who's married to Kim Kardashian, dated Irina Shayk, blah, blah, blah, blah.

- I feel like I'm just not gonna get the sympathy vote in this situation, (laughs) right?

- (laughs) I feel your pain. I feel your pain.

- Yeah, I feel like no one's gonna feel my pain.

- Only Brad and Leo could feel my pain, right?

- [Lex] But still...

- But here today, when you said it's a sorry apology, what's the apology that you're looking for as a Jewish engineer?

- Oh, not... As Lex, let's not talk about you being Jewish, as Lex.

- What's the apology that you want me to say to, am I allowed to say Jewish?

- Tell me, is it anti-Semitic for Ye to say, "Jewish," out loud?

- No, I don't like the allowed, that presumed censorship. I think you choose-

- [Ye] You censor.

- You have a powerful voice.

- Did I prove that there was censorship over the past two weeks? I proved it.

- Who censored you? Oh, "Drink Champs."

- Who? Oh my Lord. (laughs)

- Oh, like Twitter, and so on?

- Twitter-

- "Drink Champs."

- That hurt you, the "Drink Champs," that N.O.R.E took you down, took down your conversation.

- No.

- It didn't hurt you? Man, you gotta be honest about the-

- ♪ And I'm free but still the kids we used to be ♪

- ♪ I put my hand on the stove ♪

- ♪ To see if I still bleed ♪

- ♪ And nothing hurts anymore ♪

- ♪ I feel kinda free ♪

- No. Do you think... You know, I went to Japan for two to three months, right?

- The day I had Sunday service, my kids are supposed to be there, and my kids were nowhere to be found.

- And I text Kim and said, "Where are my kids?"

- We get into an argument, and then I get a text from a number I don't know, and it's Pete Davidson bragging about being in bed with my wife, then...

- [Lex] Just fucking with you?

- Well, at that point, it's like they're trying to put me in jail or put a friend of mine in jail because then I'm gonna go surround the hotel and you know, do something which would have me not be able to be here.

- And instead, I walked away from that situation. I went to Japan like the samurai that I am, and went to the top of the mountain.

- And 'cause, I mean, I knew there was no way she could love this dude.

- Not just because he's ugly, he's not Black, she likes Black guys.

- Every guy that she, you know, is with looks exactly the same.

- Ray J, Reggie Bush, at that time, Kanye West, she has a type.

- Just like how I have a type, like a lot of my girls look kinda similar to her because in a video game character, people have their type, right?

- [Lex] Yeah.

- So I knew that this was like-

- The princess has a type and she likes Mario.

- Right, there you go.

- As somebody cares for you and hopefully can be a friend, Ye, I gotta say these words and the words about Jews is not the words of a samurai, of a great man.

- I would say, you know, you said something that inspired, that resonated with a lot of people when you said George Bush doesn't care about Black people.

- I have to say, as somebody who cares for you, that Ye, the artist formerly known as Kanye West, doesn't care about Jewish people in the same way you spoke about George Bush being a politician and not giving a fuck about the poor people that suffered after Katrina.

- You're not giving a fuck about the suffering of the Jewish people across the world.

- Why? Why am I not?

- Because you're feeding, you're giving strength, motivation to hate groups.

- But we already updated. I gave an apology. You said it wasn't good enough.

- Yeah, that's right. It's not.

- And now you're telling me... No, I'm not gonna-

- No, no, no, you don't need to kiss anyone's dick.

- [Ye] You asking me to kiss a dick.

- Just to say it was wrong to say. There's no Jewish media, there's no Jewish-

- There isn't?

- There's no control of the media by Jewish people.

- You're an engineer, brother. If you're an engineer and you're not holding to the truth, that's not engineering.

- Engineering, that's not... That's hate, that's not engineering.

- Engineering is-

- [Ye] No, it's called-

- I'm gonna build a better record label.

- [Ye] It's called stereotypes.

- And I'm going to respect our-

- Stereotypes exist for a reason.

- Engineers don't do stereotypes.

- I do.

- Stereotypes are dumb. They allow you to channel hate towards the other.

- You know what the biggest thing is?

- [Lex] Yeah.

- With something a veteran that was sitting next to me at Cheesecake Factory last night, he said, "You know, the general justice, he serves for whoever is the president," right?

- And he said, "What's happening in politics is we're forgetting we're on the same side.

- We're forgetting we're on the..."

- This is someone is practically... Now he's a nurse.

- So he's still, you know, fighting for humanity in a way.

- He went from holding, you know, guns in battle to being a nurse, and when people are battling for their lives.

- And he said, "We're forgetting we're on the same side."

- This is a person that no matter who becomes president, he can still be told to go to war.

- And the chaos that's created by the media has split the country in half.

- And what us as beings with an engineering opportunity need to do right now is find the blue water.

- Where are places that we agree on?

- And I want you to finish everything.

- Hey, I'ma let you finish.

- Everything that-

- I've heard that before.

- That you want to express to me, get off all...

- I'm your scarecrow today.

- I'm your punching bag today for everything I did, and I want you to stand up for all of the hate that...

- I'm your Al Gore when he lost the election.

- Remember, he almost became a punching bag for the lady that had voted on him.

- And she just said all this stuff, and he's like, "I know, I agree with you," right?

- But there's nothing, you know, that he could do about it.

- With this, it's like things that you're saying, I agree with you.

- You know, it's like if you sit some kids in the principal's office and I punched somebody, right?

- I took my hand, right?

- As what it really means.

- Even Ari Emanuel had to say.

- This is a pop icon, right?

- And I went and just punched an entire people at one time or said that I was about to.

- I went like this, right?

- And I got blacked out, black mirrored. Done, right?

- And it's like, "What were you even gonna do?

- And why did you go like this?"

- I went like this because I can't even do...

- I would look insane to physically show you a metaphor, a physical representation of my last 20 years of what I've been through as a musician, as a father, and as a Black person with a political opinion.

- A great man still. Through the pain does the right thing.

- And I think the right thing is to not say that there's Jewish control of the media, and-

- That's incorrect though. That's a fucking lie. There is.

- And they did come and bully me. It proved the point.

- No, the reason you don't say it is because the world is much bigger than the forgive me, the narrow little world you exist in.

- Your impact stretches way past those little boardroom meetings over contracts. You understand?

- So what should I have done? What should I have done?

- Not say that you should be a strong man that doesn't mention religion or people, and then fight.

- Do you wanna win this fight? Because-

- How do I win? How do we win?

- Call out individual people. That's one way because you have a big voice.

- The other voice that I prefer is to build another label or support another label.

- I feel like you're controlling my creative narrative and my...

- Because just like how you're telling me I shouldn't have said that.

- Do you think there are people telling me I shouldn't have wore a red hat?

- No, 'cause you asked me, "What should I have done?"

- You're supposed to be a scarecrow.

- So I thought I'm gonna beat the shit out of the scarecrow with my words, right?

- You let me.

- [Lex] Yeah.

- It was consensual.

- The punching bag is a bag 'cause scarecrow actually has a different real view.

- Yeah, that's right, I'm not a good-

- [Ye] So let's say a punching bag.

- Yeah.

- [Ye] I shouldn't say a scarecrow.

- Yeah, yeah.

- But every single person that I've sat with from the point when I wore the red hat to now has done the same thing.

- Sit in the principal's office and don't do what you're doing.

- We're in the generalist closet right now, together.

- [Ye] Yeah.

- And the red hat is very different.

- The red hat is you have a set of beliefs.

- You represent half the country that has a hope, a vision for the future of America.

- That's very different than without any purpose whatsoever saying Jewish media.

- Jewish control of the media.

- You said that there's no purpose.

- So you're taking away my history and my reason of what my purpose was.

- I'm saying you look dumb. (laughs)

- [Ye] Also, it can-

- I'm speaking my voice, vocalizing it.

- Also, it's God's plan.

- [Lex] Yeah.

- There's a lot of things that open up.

- Let me tell you something that open up.

- There's a guy, like I told you, that was running Stem Player who I've had issues with.

- We hadn't got paid on time. Certain things, right?

- And he took his IQ, his knowhow, his engineering knowhow to...

- He basically was trying to Adidas me with, even though I was the bigger money in the situation.

- That was fun.

- And we funded together.

- And he hired these engineers and he said, "Well, because of your comments, we're not gonna be able to hire anybody else."

- And I was like, "Well, how many Jewish people do we have in our company?"

- He said, "I don't know."

- He didn't say exactly, right?

- I said, "Do we have Black people?"

- He said, "Yes."

- I said, "How many?"

- He said, "Two."

- So we have like 60 full-time employees, like 40 halftime and part-time.

- And I took it as a responsibility.

- Let's take a step back from us being one species and say, "Hey, you're Jewish, I'm Black," right?

- [Lex] Why step back?

- For this example, for the sake of this example.

- [Lex] Cool.

- And I said, "Wow, I'm sure I can hire more than two Black engineers."

- And what happens is, because there are so many businessmen that just so happen to be Jewish that it's good business, right?

- Just to monopolize, that's where people are looking.

- Everybody wants to be Elon, right?

- So the-

- [Lex] I disagree with that.

- Okay, but let me finish this point.

- [Lex] Sure. I'ma let you finish, I'ma let you finish.

- A lot of businessmen want to be as successful as Elon and as popular as Elon.

- A lot. Just word it like that, which I hate the term a lot actually.

- I wanna be more specific, but I haven't done the math on it.

- Let's say some. Factually, for sure, there are some business people of all different walks and backgrounds that would like to be as rich and as popular as Elon Musk.

- So let me just take a step back from the we are one species into the we're separated by race, gender, socioeconomic class conversation.

- And say, as a Black owner of two tech platforms, hardware and software, I need to take action.

- Let's not call it affirmative. Let's just say I need to take action and I need to take accountability in ensuring that Black engineers are hired.

- And guess what? Hired together.

- Because when the Black people that are brilliant are separated from our culture, we forget who we are.

- And we'll get to a point where, you know, OJ has said, "I'm not Black, I'm OJ."

- Because just to be on the golf course, we put on the golf shirt, but the golf shirt might not be something that our culture would've done.

- And now our culture in poorer communities is, oh, everybody's got Draco on 'em.

- Everybody's got a gun on 'em.

- Oh, if you run up on me on a gas station, I'ma kill you.

- Hey, you ain't gotta talk to me like a man if I haven't killed at least five people.

- But you know what happens is we can kill five people, we could kill 10 people and still be in the media as long as we play by the rules, right?

- 'Cause what will happen is any of these guys that have talked about killing people and different things, unless Trump had pardoned them, right?

- But let's say even if Trump had pardoned 'em, they could still go to someone like a Lil Boosie, or a Meek Mills or Puff Daddy, anybody, and say, "Hey, we need you to talk shit about Ye right now."

- And also, you're not allowed.

- If you do wanna vote for Trump or vote outside of what this arrangement is, then we're gonna put you in jail.

- Now we're not gonna bring you down, we have this on you.

- You get what I'm saying?

- If I had ever killed someone, if I wasn't the bitch with the pink polo on, I wouldn't be able to be the vocal man that I am today.

- You understand what I'm saying?

- This is the reason why I'm happy that my gangster disciple brothers kept me from the initiations, which made me feel like a pussy my whole life, right?

- But now I am someone who legally can say this.

- Other people in my position, they legally cannot speak.

- They legally cannot speak, or they will go to prison.

- I am in a bit of a glass prison because I don't have say so of where my children go to school.

- But I'm in a freedom place where I can have this conversation with you right now.

- And that is, I don't like the word breakthrough, you know, that's God's hand on this situation.

- But you get what I'm saying about if I hadn't said the tweet, I wouldn't have had to take the accountability myself to hire Black engineers into my two tech platforms?

- Yeah.

- And do you get what I'm saying?

- That's a beautiful personal journey you're on.

- But do you get what I'm saying that that-

- It's not personal. It's for my people as a whole, as a tribal person.

- It's a small company.

- It's a small company.

- As a tribal person, I believe that I am my people.

- Yeah.

- And the thing that businessmen have done to my people have pulled the brightest out of our tribes and siloed them, and made us lose our culture and lose who they were.

- The only thing I wanted to say at Virgil's funeral, which I wasn't allowed to, right?

- It was a white pastor that talked the majority of the funeral, half the funeral was pissed, pissed, right?

- And this pastor actually married me and Kim, right?

- He looks like Justin Timberlake a little bit.

- And he talked half the funeral.

- He knew Virgil's passing, did a collaboration with him before he passed, by the way.

- Right? A clothing collaboration.

- I didn't know Virgil was passing.

- But the thing I wanted to say, I saw ASAP Rocky and I saw some other members of his gang, you know, in the audience at the funeral.

- And all I wanted to tell him is, "Don't let them split the gang up. Don't let them split the gang up."

- When I did the first Yeezy, 'cause I did Kanye West 2 fashion shows before as a high-end luxury, all leather kinda designer.

- Not all leather, but you know, high-end materials, mink, this kinda thing.

- And then I came back with Yeezy with Adidas.

- And this fashion show was so popular that Justin Bieber had to sit in the second row, right?

- This thing had every name you could think of.

- It had Kim Kardashian, Kris Jenner, Kendall Jenner.

- It was Kylie's first fashion show she'd been in.

- And in the second fashion show, I put Kylie and Bella Hadid next to each other in the fashion show.

- You had Puff Daddy at that time.

- Puff Daddy had beef with Drake.

- Drake still came to the show.

- And Jay-Z had to break up the fight backstage.

- The designers, you had Jerry Lorenzo, that's head of Fear of God.

- You had Kim Schraub, head of Skims, you had Virgil Abloh, head of Louis Vuitton, you had Demna, head of Balenciaga, all working for Ye, for the leader, for the philosopher, right?

- For the person that put... Who put this together? Me, that's who.

- Right? You had these people working for the king of New York, basically, the boss. Ye, right?

- You had Jay-Z in the audience, Rihanna in the audience, Beyonce in the audience, sitting next to Anna Wintour in this audience.

- And guess who heard wind of this?

- One of the richest men in the world, Bernard Arnault, caught wind of this.

- What's going on? They're building up something and we need to stop it.

- So then he met with me and politely offered me backing for my clothing line.

- It would be Kanye West. They would get 49% or 51%. I would get 49%.

- They'd have control.

- And they were gonna give me all of the support from Louis Vuitton.

- So I had to go to Adidas, and I told Adidas, "Hey, let's indemnify the apparel."

- So Adidas, you're not gonna do the apparel anymore.

- Hey, we had a good time, but we're gonna run off with Gisele now, right?

- So that's like you told your girl that, and she's like, "Oh, I know we're supposed to... We had the proudest moment of our career and stuff." (Lex chuckles)

- So then he offers me the deal, and Alexandre Arnault who's went to gone on and rape and pillage from all of the talent that I had afterwards, said...

- I said, "Before I tell Adidas to indemnify the apparel, can I get a written contract from your dad, Bernard Arnault?"

- And he says, "My dad will never go back on his word."

- So you already know what this thing is going, right?

- [Lex] Yeah.

- You can spoiler alert, right?

- He went back on his word.

- So three months into the deal, I get Anna Wintour, I say, "Who should I use for my lawyer?"

- She picks my lawyer for me, right?

- I just found out even a couple of days that the lawyer demanded a airplane during negotiations, had nothing to do with me, right?

- They said that Bernard Arnault got freaked out.

- And then Alexandre Arnault calls me and says, "The deal got dropped at the board."

- I went back and told my high maintenance wife, I was supposed to become this designer at Louis Vuitton, or the Louis Vuitton group was gonna back the Kanye West line, 'cause that's how good I've done in fashion, babe.

- And now the deal has dropped.

- Now the deal has dropped.

- So then I did a second collection, and we didn't have any support to be able to build the collection.

- Then I went and found, and third collection, we did it.

- We took over MSG.

- Fourth collection went, and the show started an hour late.

- Then a week later, Kim got robbed.

- Then I told Scooter Braun, my manager at that time, I say, "I'm looking... You know, I need to go to Japan. I'm tired, I'm tired."

- He says, "No, you need to make more money."

- I do four more shows on a second leg of the tour, and I suffer from exhaustion and go to the hospital, and then get diagnosed with a disorder.

- This is the first time I ever suffered from exhaustion.

- By the way, I haven't been to the hospital since.

- I haven't been to the hospital since, and haven't taken, you know, medication in two years.

- And I'm sure there'll be people in the media, we won't say.

- Where phone will say, "Well, that's obvious," right?

- So right now, I'm talking to you, right?

- I'm not on medication. I just go to sleep.

- Right? I have sleep.

- Have you been able to sleep?

- That's too low hanging fruit for you. I expect more.

- Yeah, that's right. I agree, I agree, I agree.

- [Ye] I expect more.

- That was dumb, I regret it.

- Okay, okay. That's like Piers Morgan trying to grab ratings, like you got a whole life ahead of you.

- You got a whole life ahead of you.

- Oh shit.

- These guys are at the end of their life.

- Oh, good.

- [Ye] So this story is-

- Throw me outta my shit. I love it.

- But then amidst that, (Lex laughs) the same guy

- [Lex] Yeah.

- that dropped my deal, Bernard Arnault, goes and hires my best friend, goes and hires my main engineer, right?

- It would've been like them hiring, you know, Elon from Peter before they figured out Paul, before they figured out PayPal.

- But Paul sounds like... Powell sounds like Paul.

- I just said, 'cause I'm a Christian. I thought it was cool.

- [Lex] Yeah.

- But it would've been like, what if someone could have went in and took Elon away from Peter before they pay Paul, before they...

- 'Cause they PayPal.

- Yeah, before they pay Paul.

- Before they PayPal.

- It's just too close.

- [Lex] Yeah, too close.

- It just sounds so fresh to the fact that it's so close, right?

- And that's what happened, right?

- They broke the gang up.

- [Lex] Yeah.

- And I'm telling you right now, that hadn't happened, Virgil's alive, I'm still married, you know what I'm saying?

- The power structure was broken then, right?

- Because we were building some... Kylie wasn't a billionaire at the...

- You know what I mean?

- [Lex] Yeah.

- We were building something together that a French colonizer came in and caught it early and tried to destroy it.

- But the only thing is God is alive and I'm anointed.

- And even with those drawbacks, losing my wife, losing my friend, exhaustion, all of these late night tweets that pissed off an entire group.

- You know, like the frustration still there.

- I work for God, and God runs the world.

- And we'll see what happens.

- But in those words, don't you feel that, being split up, don't you feel you're doing the thing that you stand against, which is playing victim?

- Aren't you playing victim to the forces in the world?

- I didn't play victim. I didn't even get a chance to play.

- I just said I was about to.

- I said like this, like...

- No, you played pretty damn well. What do you mean? What do you mean about to?

- You're like one of the greatest designers in history of fashion designers.

- You were playing. You are playing.

- What does that even mean?

- I thought you were referring to the tweet, saying I'm playing the victim there.

- No, all of it.

- Well, there's a full set of things that you're under attack for, the tweet and everything beyond that.

- But like, you're blaming, not blaming, but you're saying that the Jewish media, the Jewish record labels, the Jewish people.

- Jewish or not, it doesn't matter.

- It's playing victim, right?

- Ultimately, I am fighting a battle in the spiritual form.

- And anyone that believes in God and is looking at this interview would agree with that.

- And I just so happen to be a bright part of God's army.

- I'm fighting for us to live.

- The greatest gift is life itself.

- I am pro-life.

- I am pro-God.

- I believe that Jesus Christ is our Lord and Savior and died for our sins.

- What do you feel about another attack?

- Another painful thing, I imagine super painful is Balenciaga pulling.

- You had a really close relationship and friendship with their creative director.

- Like how do you feel about all of it?

- I told you, I sang the song.

- I sing another song from one of my mentors, "Future."

- I never feel pain.

- I done felt too much pain. (laughs)

- Like there was a day where I was headed to Nashville to meet with George Farmer, who was the CEO of Parler, the day when we made the announcement.

- At that same day, Balenciaga was taking my imagery off of their sight, and the "Drink Champs" was being taken down.

- And I said, "This is the happiest day of my life."

- I love cutting the grass low.

- People wasn't really with you, they was part-time.

- People switch up when it's wartime.

- I'd rather have people who are really with me and not people who are just trying to use me.

- Listen, as a friend, as somebody who cares for you, you have to be really careful by the people, by all people always.

- The people that are gonna try to be close to you now, you don't know if you can trust them anymore than-

- Even more.

- With Balenciaga, I have more to say about it though.

- [Lex] Yeah.

- Let's do this.

- [Lex] Yeah.

- Demna will still work for Ye someday.

- And this is just speeding the process up.

- Have you talked? Can you share if you've talked?

- Yes, I talked to Demna.

- This is like we're kindred spirits.

- None of this can keep us away from each other.

- I brought Demna to Gap to be able to bring the best product in the world.

- At that time, I wanted to go under a hundred dollars.

- Now I'm like, "Okay, we're gonna go $20 a product."

- I brought Demna in to engineer.

- That's why I said, "Engineered by Balenciaga."

- Yeezy got engineered by Balenciaga.

- To engineer the best product for the people.

- The people that they say are at the bottom of the Maslow hierarchy of need chart.

- They're at the bottom of the pyramid, right?

- So Gap didn't want that.

- Balenciaga didn't want that.

- Our agendas were

Actually, there are multiple degrees that have been canceled from their schools. And they don't have a music industry or a fan base or a shoe design or a smoking hot ex-wife to complain about. They've just got the truth of what they saw and what they dedicated to this country and to education that has been muted by schools that have been taken over with an agenda.

And so you want the brightest minds to be these professors, and then you mute them, and they have nowhere to go. You might get a guy now that went from being someone's favorite professor to he's working at Starbucks, like he was back at school, or like he was back in high school.

So even if that voice is about anger and hate, it still deserves to be heard.

Yeah, deserves to be heard, and we deserve to ask why. You know, like you have to ask why. I just feel like that's what's... I feel like that is sympathize with Mr. Huge Cock. I'm just saying that it just needs to be... (laughs)

You should change that to your name on Twitter while you're still allowed on there.

Yeah. I do think that would get censored. I feel like, you know, they definitely cut it down some inches. (laughs) I'm pointing out this truth. No, I'm serious, this is not a Christian thing, right? And you know, I wonder right there, when I say these jokes, is it something that... 'Cause I do feel like laughter is the key. Engineering and laughter, right? Is the key to peace.

Like when I go get my teeth cleaned, and I have the nitrous. There's something that I wanna go and hug Kris Jenner. I wanna go and hug Corey Gamble. I wanna go and hug, you know, Howard Stern. No one wants to hug Howard Stern. But you know, just if one-

No, no, no. I would love to see you two hug it out and make up, even though all this shit talking back and forth.

What about talking it out? Or is he gonna be screaming at me?

Yeah, judgmental, and that kind of stuff. No, I hope there's love there.

You know, the thing is, I think Howard's just jealous. You know, not just jealous of my cock, also, he's jealous that I started my campaign earlier than him.

You gotta let go of that jealousy.

You gotta let go of that jealousy, Howard. You gotta let-

Howard and everybody else. Jealousy is a natural human thing, man.

I wonder just as a Christian, right? When I joke and say this stuff, it's like, "Hmm, am I being disobedient to God?" Because as a boss, right? I'll talk to an employee, and I'll be like, "Why didn't you just listen?" Because I've got the bigger plan, right? So it's like me talking to God. Were there things that I did in this interview that were disobedient to God? And for those things, I pray and I repent for anything that I've said that was disobedient to God.

But humor is not one of them. I feel like humor is the way we avoid so much suffering in the world. It's like a catalyst for love.

Yeah.

Like it's a way to... People that have gone through some of the darkest trauma that I've ever met since the war. I just came back from Ukraine, they're laughing. They're making jokes. That's the best way to deal with dark times. I don't know what it is about, like humans. I feel like humor. That's the best way to socially engineer a good future I think is humor. Not taking shit too seriously.

That's the problem with censorship. One of the things that really suffer is humor, jokes, maybe going too far in the jokes. You mention Anthony Jeselnik, that guy goes hard. That guy goes really hard, and it's great. He crosses all the lines, and that's why he's a genius. And that's what feels refreshing when he does it. I don't know what it is.

But then it's like hurtful when I do it. But I'll tell you something that was interesting. I'm pretty sure Anthony doesn't like, sorry for the assumption, but just most comedians I know didn't vote for Trump.

That's interesting.

Not saying there aren't comedians that did, but just the ones I know 'cause I live in California, right?

But they have an appreciation for Trump 'cause of the sense of humor.

Yeah.

I gotta ask you about Parler engineering 'cause I'm interested about that.

Doom, doom, doom, doom.

Hey man, I'm actually trying to hold it together. You're pretty offensive towards a lot and-

I'm not looking to be offensive. I really wanna bring people together and get these notes done.

I know. But 100%, I see your vision.

How do we do that?

But somebody you care... Well, don't say, "Jewish media and Jewish-controlled media."

JM.

Like, man, it sounds too much like 1930s Nazi Germany that was leading up to the atrocities.

Oh, he would say, "JM?"

Yeah, he was branded JM. That's right. No, the implied like this memeified prejudice towards a group in a way that's going to lead to hate. And I know you don't mean that. I know you have love in your heart. That's what I'm trying to-

You know what's a prejudice towards a group that led to hate? BLM. BLM took a Black person, showed his death on camera because okay, there are examples of us being killed and being killed on camera. But if it was spread on camera, it was done on purpose by the media because 14, 20 kids get killed in Chicago every week. And it's not spread that much.

They, like you said, singled out a person, directed everything on that person, right? As the martyr, and raised the people that hadn't had any. We didn't have our 40 acres and a mule. We didn't have, you know, like a lot of things, right? Like that Black people have not ever been given.

So once we're given just a little bit, like your life matters, right? Then we literally like, "Oh, okay, now we're being heard," right? But actually, the death toll is up. The city where this happened is completely been turned to a war zone. It's actually something like Candace Owens can actually specify this better, but it's like its own city or something. Like they made it not be a part of the actual state or something. It's like DC and stuff. It's like Washington, DC now and stuff. And that has to be from a government, you know, that's got higher level agenda written all over it.

Yeah, they're using the death of an individual. Yeah, sure, the media are. Not the Jewish media, the media.

The media.

And that's the media's fucked up. That machine takes whatever tragedy and pushes it towards whatever narrative that gets more clicks and views and so on. Sure. And then politicians do the same. They use the media, they influence the media to tell a story, and-

Aight, this is a simple thing I put. I believe that the idea of antisemitism and the closeness of the Holocaust is used by certain individuals in media to not take accountability for the bad things that are happening.

And what's happening is there's a new frontier, right? Meaning like it used to be okay for somebody to be a billionaire. We thought about a billionaire, right? A lot of times, you think I'm actually kinda being outta shape, and you know, 20 years ago, 30 years ago, like Onassis or something, like you thought about it a different way.

Now you think about it, but you think about Elon, you think Kim, you think Ye. You think it's a new kind of billionaire. You know, it is not just Soros as a billionaire. It's a new form of billionaire.

Well, right now, what I'm calling for the industry is I'm calling the industry out and saying like, "Hey, it just so happens that there's been times where I had my lawyer was Jewish, my regular was Jewish," but like eight people that basically would collude and talk without me were in groups saying, "Okay, this is what the tour is gonna be. This is his next house," and they were making all these decisions and they're making all this money.

And at the end, I was like, I ended my tour and I don't have the money. And it just so happens that that's the case, what they were. But what I'm saying is if everyone can say, "Hey, you can't point out this fact, or we're gonna say you're anti-Semitic and we're gonna call you Hitler."

I feel that there has to be at least 1% of safeguarding the ability to screw the artist based on saying it's anti-Semitic by pointing out that they just so happen to all be Jewish. And I don't think that's antisemitism. I just think that's, hey, this is another thing like, okay, the Kardashians, when you hear that, do you think male or do you think female? You think female.

You get what I'm saying? You think this is the realities, this is why rap works, right? They're gonna make an anti-women thing in a second, right? And it's gonna say, well, if you point out that these five women, six women are having a meeting on where the Christmas party is and none of the ball players or rappers that they have babies with have any say so.

So that Christmas happened at Courtney's house all eight years when I was there. And it never happened at anyone else's Black family house, right? If I'm the one that pointed it out, they don't have their, oh, your anti-Semitic word to say, "Shut the fuck up!"

Yeah, but-

'Cause this is the way it runs, and this is the way we wanna do it.

If you say that women are silencing the Black voice, yes, you're gonna get the same response, but especially, if it historically resonates.

But what about the fact that it's true?

When you talk in groups that breeds hate, when you talk about individuals, it solves problems. You're engineering.

Okay, but this is something I pointed out on Piers. I said, "If a Black person gets pulled over with a car and there's three other people in the car, they're also going to jail. They're not going to single them out. They're gonna say, 'You guys are all in collusion.'"

I just described collusion five times in this interview. And you keep on going back to this is like 1930. This is like this, this is like that. What I'm saying is, look, I want to work with you as an engineer to free my people. Can we start as a being with engineering opportunities right here?

Yeah.

I am sorry to the people who had to be hurt and affected by that. Now we are here, and I'm looking to solve it. But what happens is every time, if I talk to any of these business people one by one, 'cause mind you, I didn't get to the tweet by not having a conversation. I had the conversations beforehand, before I got to the tweet.

Now we gonna take it to the stage. Now we're on the world stage, right? And you saw Ari Emanuel do exactly the kinda thing that I was saying had been done behind closed doors. Now he's doing it in open doors.

They told Candace Owens I couldn't be on The Daily Wire. Like you can't even explain yourself, and we don't care how you got to that point either. And that's fucked up!

They told Candace you can't be on Daily Wire?

Is that even about... Yes, she did. That's what they said. And you know what? And you can have my voice raised or lowered. I'ma do it lower, right? Because what's happening to me by, I put in your words, the media is saying, "Not only can you not explain yourself, we don't care how you got to that point. You need to apologize and you can't explain. And that's the end of the story. So just apologize, so we can have Mel Gibson do some more films."

It's exactly what Ari Emanuel is saying. No one is looking to change the problem that led so many people to that same level of frustration. And I just so happen to be the one that's not gonna back up on it until this changes.

'Cause you know what? I'm sorry I had a sleepy text. I'm sorry I wrote... I'm sorry for everything. I'm sorry that I was 5'12 or 5'11 on Tinder. Okay, my cock is not 14 inches. I lied, okay? It's only 13.

Yeah.

So I'm sorry, right?

Yeah.

So the... (laughs)

Why you dropping so many facts today?

So what I'm saying is, but where do we get to this? 'Cause even you as engineering, as intelligent as you are, you, just like everyone else that I'm saying was colluding, won't let us get to the point of fixing it.

Yeah. But I think you're more powerful than the media. I'm not saying you need to apologize because of the media. I'm saying everything we've been talking about, just 'cause I care for you and I want you to be the best possible man you can be.

To me, a definition of a great man. I'm with Martin Luther King on this. You don't talk about Jews or Black people. You talk about engineering, you talk about humanity. You solve problems. You identify the problems in the world, and you don't come from a place of resentment.

This group did this, this. Fuck all that. That is in the past. You just build solutions. I'm gonna create a new record label. I'm gonna create a new design firm. I'm gonna create a new social network. I'm gonna do it better. I'm gonna do it right. I'm gonna do it right by the people that I know don't have a voice. I'm gonna give 'em a voice and talk about that.

Is it okay to call out collusion? Do people collude in your business under you? Like the engineers that come together and like say they collude against the bosses, right?

You know why Bernard Arnault offered the deal and took it away from me? Collusion. Because I was too powerful with the collective that I had right there. He had to stop that at all costs.

They said, "For whatever reason, this kid, Ye, it has the ability to have all of the Kardashians, Jay-Z and Beyonce, Justin Bieber, Demna, Virgil, all these people in the same room-"

Yeah.

"Working towards a same goal." I've been that person since preschool. That's called a leader, right? And right now, what I'm saying is, hey, for the people in business, whatever their background is, whether they turn their cell phones off on Friday or not, there's been some bad business done.

There's some bad business practices. And we have to change that because this game is like boxing. More people end up retarded than rich. And I'm saying like beat to a pope, driven crazy, beat by the media to a pope.

Right now, the media has done everything they could to make me apologize and to make me look crazy. And that one person has done anything to find out why I was frustrated enough to do that tweet. And that's facts. And that's fucked up.

Well, I was hoping to, I am finding out. We found out. I mean, like I want solutions. Like, see, there's something about human nature where if you focus too much on resentment towards-

We're not focusing on anymore. Fuck the resentment.

Right, right.

We're moving forward.

Right. So there's two things I think that are required for... I mean, this is how I've lived my life for great engineering. You surround yourself in your personal life by people you trust, and then in your professional life, from the engineering perspective with the team, with an incredible team, and everything else doesn't matter.

That allows you not to focus on other groups, how they're fucking you over, how they're like trying to manipulate or collude, and all that kinda stuff. You focus on solutions, and you find a way around all the difficult shit. That's it.

If you have people in your life you can trust, that's like lifelong. You said like some people you're with for the summer, for a year. Find people you can be with for your whole life. Do you have people in your life that you trust? Like really trust?

No, I trust God. At any point, a human being... If I like go and like really, you know, treat this guy like a piece of shit or do this, da da da. Am I supposed to, you know, trust him to be loyal and stay in the situation or I trust people to be people?

And people are flawed. And people can have the right intentions, but it only makes sense for us to work together when our agendas align. When Kim was pulled really far to the left, our agenda's no longer, you know, aligned. So that made the marriage impossible.

It aligned where it's like, "Oh, I could wear a red hat that can help her to get Alice Johnson outta jail because Trump's willing to do that for my wife." Because I was the only person in my position that stood up and said, "Wait a sec, I like you." You know, because-

But isn't there deeper agenda, the human agenda of just being in love? Like that's just... What you're talking about, red hat is just politics, right?

I mean, the world is becoming more and more transactional every day. And actually, marriages were actually originally based on transactions, you know? And that's why they're less needed, the more autonomous as we come, or the world makes it less needed.

I feel like we do need each other. I feel like we do need someone we can always, you know, count on. It's like, I'm Ye pulled away by King Koopa, which is the media, the politics, the promise.

Oh, we're gonna keep you safe. So the reason why I get, you know, really frustrated with Kris Jenner, she says losing Rob Kardashian was the greatest mistake of her life, but she never gave Kim's hand over in marriage because this is the bottom line.

When me and Kim met, we were millionaires or whatever, right? You're telling me you just hand her hand over in marriage that your daughter's not successful, handing your hand over in marriage too.

But no, she had to still be the husband to all of her daughters. And we see what the results are consistently. So that's where I get, you know, frustrated. It's like, let that go. Let this person do what you made mistakes on.

Don't make this person relive those same mistakes, and then put that agenda into my daughters too.

Is there somebody in your life close to you that you trust enough to call you out on your bullshit? We're all full of shit sometimes.

What's my bullshit?

Well, some of it, I pointed out today, but I don't know you deeply enough.

What was the bullshit?

Jewish media, Jewish-

That's not bullshit. The bullshit is that the Jewish media -

No, no.

won't admit.

Your dad was right, your dad was right. The words you used. The point you were-

And I said it, you're not gonna make me say it 800 more times.

I don't know if it resonated 'cause you keep saying like the words-

Did it resonate to y'all that y'all ain't do nothing about it? And that all y'all wanna do is have somebody apologize or sweep under the rug your bullshit that you've been doing the whole time.

You on the same bullshit as the other people. So you're doing the same thing that the other, let's say media, 'cause I'm not allowed to say, has done. So until somebody stands up-

Which is what? Which is what, man? Which is what? I'm trying to call you out in your bullshit 'cause I hope I'm somebody you can trust. That's it.

I don't fucking trust you.

Well, you should find people in your life you can trust.

Don't tell me what I should do. I'm not one of your BLM marchers.

Listen, I'm with you on the BLM. A lot of organizations use tragedy. And I watched the Candace Owens documentary.

And what was your take on it?

I think it's important to question the mainstream narratives, but I don't agree with it. I still believe that George Floyd died from the knee of the cop, not from fentanyl.

And even if that was the case, there's still 50% of Black deaths is actually abortion. So let's get into engineering. Let's just go 'cause that's so-

Well, how do you fix that?

Population control is social engineering in its most literal form. The Blacks are under population control. That's something that... I mean, that's just what it is.

African Americans are not choosing to get the abortion? I mean, it's a choice. It's an individual choice.

But we're being influenced to.

Well, then speak to the community and help. I mean, I don't know what the engineering solutions there are. It could be you are doing that in part by speaking to the value and the power of family.

Well, watch this. I was building shelters. I bought land in Calabasas, and I bought two ranches in Wyoming, 300 acres in Calabasas, 12,000 acres in total in Wyoming.

And I started building ideas for shelters, and God set it on my heart to make monasteries, which would be modern-day facilities that don't turn people down, that have farms, that have shelter, clothing.

But first of all, water, first of all, knowledge because knowledge is the most important resource to our species above water. Knowledge (laughs) itself because then you can go get water.

I mean, you could argue, like if you're a baby, how do you get water? But the baby doesn't have it. You know, so someone with the knowledge then feeds the baby the water. But it's important that those with the knowledge teach the baby how to find the water themselves.

And the business people that I've been dealing with have been keeping the baby sick by not sharing the information and the knowledge with inside of those contracts. My people are sick.

If I load up Apple Music right now and I play the top songs in the rap chart, I will tell you my people are sick. If I go to the restaurants in opportunity zones and we look at the calorie rating and the cholesterol, I would tell you that my people are sick.

If we look at the obesity rate, if you go to just a restaurant somewhere in Middle America, Denny's or something. I went to Denny's the other day. You will see that my people are sick, and my people, meaning all people, right?

But Black people are very influential to all people. So, right. So if the media picks a overweight Black woman and says, "This is body goals," then the media are influencing my people to stay sick.

And it just so happens that that night, I was so frustrated after 20 years that I had to call it out in one tweet that now, even if I say, "Hey, okay, I was frustrated for these reasons," now it's not good enough.

You've literally tried to make me re-apologize 10 times in this meeting. Re-say this, re-say that. But it doesn't change the fact that my people are sick, and I'm the only person in my position that will say that my people are sick.

Today, not 30 years ago, not 60 years. My people are sick today. 50% of my people's deaths are abortion today. My people don't have the opportunities today.

Even to the point that because if JP Morgan had been nice to me, and if Alex Klein in Stem Player had been fair to me, different things, then I wouldn't even point it out that we don't have any Black... We have two Black engineers.

So I have to have a responsibility, obviously, to all people, but specifically, to my tribe because tribes, tribes move. You know, tribalism is real with Black people to separate the brightest from the tribe or to separate the leaders.

It is factual that the CIA removed the leaders from the Black community, put crack in the communities, put guns in the communities, and locked up all the leaders, and called them gang leader, right? Locked up all the leaders. Locked up all the fathers.

Now 72% of Black mothers are raising children by themselves. This is agenda like a Tuskegee experiment set on my people, right? And what I'm calling out for the Black people in entertainment is what are we doing?

We have to collude. And if we don't collude, because even if I said, "Hey, I'd like to make a company that's all Black," right? Is that okay for me to say? Is that okay for me to say? Or is that anti-Semitic?

See, if I hadn't crossed the line so far, then that would've sounded anti-Semitic. Now I've stretched a bit. So now we can go to, okay, let's make an all Black company. But that would've been anti-Semitic, just that concept, 'cause you could word that in a different way that would sound anti-Semitic.

I don't know, man, I have to-

No, no, listen. If I said I didn't wanna have the Jewish people in the company, would that be anti-Semitic? It would sound like it, right? You'd say I'm from 1930s, right?

Yeah.

But for me, as a tribe to say, "No, I want an all Black company," right?

I'm generally against that kinda thing. But first of all, you have the right to do whatever the hell you want. That's the matter.

Well, what I'm saying is that's what I feel may need to happen for my people to have power again. Because when my people have been left under the media's control, we've been made sick, we've been allowed to be sick, and we're promoting sickness.

I think at least in the engineering realm, I haven't met an engineer who happens to be Black, who would like to be called a Black engineer.

And when you have a company of all Black people that are engineers, I don't know the creative arts, I apologize, but engineering, they really try to look at each other as humans and look at the problem.

And you want to know, you want to have the confidence that everybody on the team is the best possible person for the job.

What I can say is the world is sick and I have slight images of utopia, slight images of happiness, slight images as a visionary and a creator.

And I know for a fact the way that business deals have been done for me are keeping the world sick.

Fix 'em. I see that's what you're trying to do. And you probably listen. People should not doubt Ye. But I gotta tell you, I have to be honest, this is silly 'cause you don't know me, but it hurt when you say you don't trust me.

You kinda lost me. I don't think anyone's ever said that to me. I don't know, man. Fuck that. I don't care about views or clickbait or any of that bullshit, I just thought you were one of the greatest artists ever.

It'd be cool to talk to you. And I feel like you got pain you're working through. I never had anyone say that to me. Maybe I'm just being a mess about it, I guess. That's fucked up though. But maybe it's not. Maybe you shouldn't trust any, but I just haven't had that experience.

Yeah. Do you think I would trust anybody at this point in my life?

Yeah, it's tough. It's tough, it's tough, I hear you. And it's also kind of good to see how much strength you got. You're not broken by any of this. You're under a lot of attack, a lot of attack by a lot of people.

You have a vision, and you're trying to feel your way through it, and you might get destroyed for it. That's the risk you take.

It's a wonderful life though.

What do you hope your legacy is?

To be forgotten.

You think you'll be forgotten?

'Cause the memory, there's ego and memory, and the memories. Who designed the sidewalk? Who designed the water fountain? Who designed the stop sign? Who designed the stoplight?

These things are so ubiquitous that the person that designed them is forgotten. If it's a good idea, it's a God idea. And no VCs can own it.

So you want your designs in all rounds of life to be so simple that they permeate everything, they take over, and you are forgotten. That's a successful design is you're forgotten?

Yes.

You have advice for people? A lot, a lot, a lot of young people look up to you. You have advice for young people of how to live a life they can be proud of?

Don't tweet while you're sleepy.

Take a nap? Surely, there's other things. I love the humor. Don't take it seriously, I suppose, is what that means.

Don't send sleepy tweets, unless you buy your own social platform the very next week. Call Parler. But other than that, if you're not gonna buy your own social... Then don't.

Is that why you bought Parler's, so you could be sleepy and send messages out into the wild? I actually am really interested in the engineering aspects of Parler. Is there a vision there? 'Cause I'm also super interested in Elon buying Twitter.

I like Instagram better than Twitter. And I'm sure Mark Zuckerberg liked Instagram better than Facebook, or saw, you know, how valuable that was, and he bought it.

So you'd like to take Parler or something. Whatever is the magic that makes Instagram work, you'll wanna push there.

Well, I thought it was interesting how it felt like Snapchat made the Kardashians bully Instagram.

What's the point of Snapchat going to war on Instagram?

Yeah, I mean, just everyone wants to say, "Well, this is our value, Snapchat." You know, no one wants to lose their value to someone else's value, whatever, it's like...

And everything is just... What's the difference between permanent and temporary? You know, it's just a permanent structure. And until God says it's not, you know, it's like nothing's permanent. Our life is not permanent.

So how do we just let go of those things? Even like going from the name Kanye West to Ye was the beginning of just letting go of some things, of these titles.

Like we need to remove the titles. Like, hey, if I have to leave Adidas and I have to go next to computers, that may take me out of the billionaire standing altogether.

And I gotta get low for however long God says I have to get low and refocus. I've been reshaping, refocusing my staff. I had some people that were good and I had some people that weren't, and I had too many people.

And I've got a vision inside of me, and I'm like, "This is how I make this vision. I have to bring this vision to life. I have to bring these houses to life."

I was talking to one of our architects on... You know, we're actually getting close on it. I've like built it a few times. I had like the domes you probably saw, and I said, you know, how he transformed Kim's house and you know, we're getting there, like-

So you wanna get into architecture. Like you really want this to become physical reality.

Yes, and I've got close. Rome wasn't built till today.

Yeah, but Rome had to start somewhere.

Yeah.

I gotta call you out on the advice. There really is a lot of people that look up to you, and you've lived a really difficult life, and you made it through all of it. What do you advise them to do?

Do everything that you feel, even if you are told that it's the wrong thing. No, no, no, no, no. But not anything violent.

So do what you feel, say what you feel. Like, trust your heart.

Yeah, trust your gut. Trust your instincts because that instinct is who God made you to be.

Not, you know, what lines up with your life, frat brothers, or what lines up with what your dad wanted, or what lines up with your classmates, or, you know, it's just God has something inside of you.

And when you walk down the street, you're thinking about it, and then you just see it in the window, and you go down another street and you see the same thing. Or you're thinking about a number and that number pops up. Or you see it on a license plate.

And that's just, you know, something is trying to say, "Be the maximum. Ye, you know, be the maximum you," and God won't give you anything that you can't handle.

So for me, everything is a yes. I think they say, "Be like water." I know Bruce Lee said that, or matter of fact, just be because we are beings with engineering opportunities.

(laughs) Beautifully put. Ye, I have hope, I have faith, however this turns out, that you have the skill and the capacity to really add love to the world.

And I hope you do that. I really, really hope you do that. And we talked about the tension of that, the challenges and the opportunities of that.

I mean, I see how we could be of use to each other. You actually have a particular thing for me as I eject from media.

'Cause even also, you know, I'm really big at like, you know, burning the phoenix too. You know, as an engineer that your cells completely regenerate every seven years, I think I rushed the process a little bit.

So I run around looking like a burn victim sometimes.

Yeah. But I gotta tell you, anyone I am close with, I work with, there has to be trust, there has to be love. And I think you've been burned quite a bit in your life.

Sometimes I did it myself.

♪ I put my hand on the stove ♪

So how do we get to engineering? There's a deal to be done here. Not saying you're making this money off of that, I'm making that money off, but there's-

I don't care about money, by the way.

Same, twins. So there's dealings here. You got pain, I got pain, but we're beings with engineering opportunities.

For a long time, I thought somebody should create a new social network, and it looks like great engineering could do that.

You got two at one time, from two of your homeboys at one time.

Yeah. And that's a great way. I mean, you know, it can be done from scratch or it can be done anew with an already established platform.

Yeah. I'm very excited by that possibility. Parler is smaller, Twitter is larger. I wonder whether you can do any kind of revolutionary engineering with a large company. If anyone can, I would say it's Elon.

Well, Elon can look at what we do over here. That's why I like... God does this a lot of times, He creates doppelgangers.

There's a lot of examples where a theory happened two places at one time. A really similar type of personality happens

It's weird. It's weird, it's beautiful.

It's hilarious actually.

It's kinda humorous.

So we should just share every piece of information together as I go build Parler and as he builds up Twitter, and see how to make both those better.

But I'll be like, "Hey, I'm not gonna let Snapchat bully me out of, you know, adding something to it that's best. It should just be the best platform possible."

Yes.

You know, that means TikTok has amazing features. Twitter has amazing things about it. But I know this girl that's like, "I like Instagram better than Twitter," is just she likes that Twitter has porn.

But other than that, Instagram. But I was like, "Well, Instagram is porn also. It's like soft. It's more subtle. It's not telling you. It's not conservative by any means," you know, and...

I mean, that's the thing. You have to please a lot of people with these platforms. And I think the goal of a platform should be to help individuals maximize their long-term happiness and growth, like intellectually, spiritually, psychologically, all of that.

And it's a tricky thing to figure out how to do that. Of course, you could just have a platform that's just strictly for fun. I think that's where TikTok leans.

But I think there's a balance to strike. Like Twitter, there's a lot of intellectual philosophical stuff going on on Twitter, but it somehow currently makes it too easy to be divisive and hateful towards each other and cancel, and all that kinda stuff.

I think we need to have these healthy conversations. That's what it is, healthy conversations, healthy dialogues. That's the biggest thing.

Like when I first wore the red hat, the conversation is less healthy than it is today. The conversation about George Floyd. You know, it's like, did I send the tweet the right way?

Is Candace Owens' documentary perfect? Michael Moore, is that documentary perfect? "Century Self" isn't fully accurate. You know, it's two to three hours of a transmit of information through a particular, usually, one person's view.

And anything you want to research, if you're interested in it, you gotta look at 10 versions of it, 20 versions of it. George Floyd, we've looked at one version of that. Now we have a second.

Well, by the time we get to the... You know, I know this is like... It's not my last hoodie, but it's definitely not my first hoodie that I put on. You know, it's like that's how we got to it.

Like even this particular size of zipper or the fact that, you know, for people who know, they know that that's like Carhartt. Even though the Carhartt tag isn't there anymore, you just know by the shape of it. You feel it.

So it abstracts, it takes into like this cubist place like Picasso, Matisse, or African cubism, or Dire Straits ♪ Is money for nothing and your chicks for free ♪

Look at that.

Great band. Hey, I wouldn't think you could reference Dire Straits. Look at you.

That video.

Yeah, I know.

It's a great video.

I think that, you know, porn is not just sexual. That term actually relates to torture.

Like, you know what I'm saying? Like watching people beat each other up on World Star or something. You know, it's like, that's called torture porn.

There's also food porn. How do you explain that?

What's food porn?

Food porn is like looking at really delicious cakes and cookies and steak, and so on. And you're like, "Holy shit."

Exactly. Architecture. Like there's people

who love architecture. When they see architecture, I know, I got friends that'll be like, "Oh, that's porn."

Yeah.

Architecture.

Yeah, yeah. That's like love, like dopamine-fueled love for a thing. Yeah, that's beautiful. I think that's beautiful.

As long as nobody's getting hurt.

The intoxication that people have. You know, the worst part is like when one person's in love and the other person's in like.

That's us right now.

Well, who's in like?

No, 'cause you said you love Bill Maher and you like me.

Not in-

And I love you. So that was-

No, I actually love you both.

All right, all right.

And the funny thing is like as a visionary, visionaries are more extreme than business people because a visionary would do bad business for their vision.

A business person will never do bad business.

It's well put. Yeah, it's really well put.

So when you say, "I don't care about money." It's like, "Yeah, I feel you." Like I feel that I care in a way that I need that, but I care about the vision that I have to a Steve Jobs level to the point of putting that above my regular human existence, meaning having to go and take all the arrows that I become a soldier of the vision.

Because someone could say, a wife could say to, say like in the '60s, their husband's about to go to war. The wife may not want their husband to go to war because of their children, but he's going to war because of their children.

Definitely. Do you regret any aspect of just giving everything to your vision? I mean, you've spoken about that, saying like, "I got fucked over in the business side."

I promise that I had to stop envying cool people at their current cool time. If anything, if someone's cool and I say their name a lot, I'm gonna flash the light on them so much that it ages their coolness.

It's actually a war technique showered in compliments.

Yeah.

You know, because to be able to stay at 45 years old and still be the bad kid in class, at 45, I'm still in the principal's office...

Because if you look at like say fashion, right? If you think of something fashionable, it's probably gonna look like the kid in the principal's office.

Yeah.

That's gonna be the fashion. And that's part of the reason why I'm the most influential person in fashion 'cause I refuse to leave the principal's office.

If the substitute teacher comes in, I'm gonna say, "You got a big butt!"

(laughs)

And they gonna-

Right back. Right back to the principal's office.

And people gonna be like, "Yo."

And that's what you keep on saying, like, "Who can we talk to?" 'Cause no one can talk to me. I'm out of control, bro.

It's just God, then me, and then fuck everybody. You know what I mean? That's really how I live my life.

And I would just wanna say this, one thing about the children thing. I wanted to, you know, put that point together, put that idea together.

I don't like the word point. I'm really big on like words, words being powerful, says the person with the sleepy tweet.

Yeah.

So-

You're full of contradictions.

Yeah, I'm a human being, right? It's like some days, I'm like, "I could go 30 days to be celibate." You know, really, like I'm a monk, I'm being like faithful to God, and then I'll go like working out, no carbs.

Like my weight will fluctuate, and I'll have times where I'm like, "I don't feel like being told what to do." So I don't wanna work out with a trainer and I just wanna drink this Hennessy.

But I wanna say this thing that I will text to Kim sometimes. I'll say, you know, "You may not understand what I'm doing right now, but you will."

And that's what I would say to everyone. You may not understand what I'm doing. And this gives a little bit, maybe we're like 20% there, but there's still gonna be people, we leave this interview, and they'll be like, "I still don't like the way he apologized. I still don't wanna say what my involvement would've been to lead him to that point."

And we just want things to be how they are. There's people in the world who want the world to stay as it is and there's people who want to change the world.

And that's happened throughout time. They say that with Da Vinci halfway into a conversation, he could not suffer fools so much that he would walk away, halfway into the conversation.

And I said, "Well, that's why it's the Da Vinci code and not the Da Vinci world."

And every time I go and piss off a group of people or do these things, on some end, it's like I could be turning my thing from a potential world vision to a code, or I could be opening up conversations with new friends that I may trust someday.

Yeah, that's beautiful. That's beautiful.

(Ye laughs)

Because the change you will have on the world that you don't know for sure, but it'll happen across years, even decades.

So you have to think in the future. Like you're working in the future, your actions are working in the future, and a lot of people will judge this conversation, and others, you've done and so on in the present.

And that doesn't matter.

You know why I apologize, why I say I'm sorry to the Jewish people that I hurt? It's not about, oh, I said, "I'm not gonna hold this apology hostage," right?

Obviously, it's about God, but God is everything, right? So what's the point of having language and you can't engineer if you say, "God, God, God," right?

It's like, it's God asks us to be judgmental, so that you become, if you're a doctor, right? It's your judgment that saves grandma, right?

And God puts that in there, like we have God inside us. We're a piece of God also, right?

So I'm gonna go specific to a person. That story about Da Vinci alone is enough of a reason for me to give a sincere apology to the Jewish people because I do believe that there's a Da Vinci code inside of all of my misspellings and scribbles right here, that God wants me to get to the world.

And when I'm in my way, if God has set something on me, when I'm in my way, I'm in God's way.

Now I can point at other people and say, "Hey, you guys are in God's way because you're not listening to me. But if I'm in my way, I'm not listening to God."

And for me to be a philosopher and a leader, whatever other language, I have to listen to God.

So before God, what I will do is start off as a samurai and say, "I'm sorry for hurting you as a Jewish person. I'm sorry for the way that made you feel. And I'm sorry for the entire population of a race that I feel is actually my brothers,"

'Cause I classify and feel that I'm also connected with Christ in that way. That my people came from Africa in that way.

And I can't say it's this exact teaching or that exact teaching, but I feel that there's an important... You know, the sons of Abraham, however we wanna word it, right?

For us to come together and bring our different talents together to serve God collectively.

And as much of a alien as I am, he did not call for me to alienate. And that's what the problem has been, especially in politics.

And in America, he plays America as the TV, as the radio to the world. We invented rock and roll, right? We are the influencers of the rest of the planet.

We are the youngest startup in history, right? We're the youngest country. We're the youngest superpower, right?

So for me, in my position, the fact that I can talk to Trump one day and be at a game with Kim Kardashian the next day, and then be at Paris Fashion Week, they don't want me to be involved with language of decisive, divisive language.

You know, proving that I can be just as racist as a racist white person. Oh, I can be a racist Black person also. That's not what God has called me to do.

So how do I simplify and say, "Hey, to you as a visionary, as an engineer, as a person that's given me a platform that as my brother, I wanna apologize to you for how that made you feel and to the rest of the people that carry specifically that pain."

Not the pain that I talk about that doesn't seem to be as much of a pain for people when I talk about the abortion clinics and stuff.

It's like that's the argued pain, even in my own community. Like not everyone thinks that's a pain.

But for the Jewish community, it's collectively this was a pain. And I've gone so far just psychologically on this journey since that statement had happened where I didn't want to like give up the candy in my pocket.

I didn't want to say, "Hey, I stuck my hand in the candy jar." I wanted to defend my freedom of speech. I wanted this.

But even with freedom of speech, pain is pain. Causing people to hurt is not helping.

Causing people to hurt is not helping. So that means I have to take a more sophisticated approach to engineering this problem.

This problem is an opportunity. And yes, what could some people may deem as a mistake?

Would it be more genuine if I called it a mistake? I think I would be hypocritical by calling a mistake with the ending of that, the idea I'm gonna say out loud.

So I don't try to be a hypocrite on purpose. But I will call it a mistake to be genuine about the feeling.

With that mistake with me as a human being, not to justify, but I have to state that God makes no mistakes.

Because if I hadn't made that mistake, I wouldn't be in front of you today. And that's not to justify this sleepy text.

But I can tell you're a man that has love in his heart. And I hear that. I hear it through the words explicitly, implicitly, and I think if we were to engineer a better future, the way to do that is with love.

So as one human to another, I love you, brother. Thank you for talking today. This is great.

I like you too.

Son of a bitch. (Ye laughs)

Thanks for listening to this conversation with Ye, formerly known as Kanye West. To support this podcast, please check out our sponsors in the description.

And now let me leave you with some words from Ye himself. Nothing in life is promised, except death. Thank you for listening, and hope to see you next time.