Kanye West, now dubbed simply Ye, has been through some stuff recently, both personally and professionally. He and his longtime wife Kim Kardashian finally split after the past few years saw him make a failed presidential bid and devote himself completely to Christ. He also launched his long-delayed album “Donda,” after a rollout that can only be described as deeply chaotic (missed release dates, a series of large scale “listening parties,” at the Mercedes Benz Arena in Atlanta, where he was also living). He clearly has stuff to say, and he is finally saying some of it, via a new interview on the “Drink Champs” podcast (which you can watch above).
During the nearly two-and-a-half-hour chat, Kanye talked with rapper N.O.R.E. and DJ EFN on a wide range of topics, beginning with him doing a monologue about how he doesn’t have a house and how he only got one shot (“I’m half-cinated”). Other topics included the fact that, while he publicly distanced himself from supporting Trump, he “still got a red hat on today” (great).
He also discussed his support of Marilyn Manson and Da Baby, both of whom appeared during the Atlanta album rollouts and both of whom have faced backlash recently – Manson for a series of supposed emotional and sexual assaults (spearheaded by Manson’s ex, Evan Rachel Wood) and Da Baby for a series of deeply insensitive, homophobic statements.
“All the #MeToo—like, when I sit next to Marilyn Manson and DaBaby, right after both of them got canceled, for five songs, you know, it’s like they can’t cancel a song,” Ye said during the podcast. “They’ll hit you with the accusations or somebody who you was with 10 years ago. And also, there’s women who’ve been through very serious things, pulled in alleys against they will—that’s different than a hug, but it’s classified as the same thing. It’s power and politics. You know, power-hungry maniacs and just control. This is ‘1984’ mind control we’re in. And mob mentality.”
West was also unhappy with the way Kim came across on a recent “Saturday Night Live” appearance. “’SNL’ making my wife say, ‘I divorced him,’ on TV because they just wanted to get that bar off, and I ain’t see the papers,” Ye said. “We’re not even divorced … They ain’t no joke to me. My kids want they parents to stay together. I want us to be together.”
This conversation is wild. Find out where he was sitting in between Oprah and Steven Spielberg and more stories about luxury fashion brands than you can probably stomach.