One may think Kanye West would want to refrain from speaking publicly for a few hours after his ridiculous New York Times interview Wednesday in which he likened himself to “the Michael Jordan of music” and “the downtown Steve Jobs.”
But as he stated in that interview, Kanye doesn't have regrets and thus, kept on talking during a secret listening party in anticipation of his new album “Yeezus” Wednesday night at the design fair during the annual Art Basel Fair in Basel, Switzerland.
The Daily Beast's Isabel Wilkinson was among the “throngs of well-dressed art collectors and dealers, socialites, and fashion folk” in the audience and has excerpted West's “lengthy introduction to the session.”
In true Kanye form, the rapper greeted his anxious listeners by again comparing himself to Steve Jobs:
“Maybe it would be cool to play my album tonight, as it comes out on the 18th of June … I feel almost like Steve Jobs giving one of those addresses right now.”
Wilkinson writes that Kanye continued with “a meandering but thoughtful speech clearly intended to connect him to the art world and this art-loving audience.”
Here are some of Kanye's most ridiculous gems from his latest rant:
- “[I hate YouTube because] the player is so ugly, and it’s presented in such a terrible manner. I want everything I do to be presented in an art context.”
- I have been in art school since I was 5 years old. I got scholarships to three art schools — and I dropped out because ... when I looked at my work, I just felt that I would never be one of the great visual artists of the world. I just felt like I would end up like — and this is no knock to anybody that does this — but I felt like I would end up working at an ad agency or something like that.
- “It’s very similar to the way Warhol would appropriate a Campbell’s Soup can is the way I would sonically appropriate a Ray Charles sample or a Michael Jackson sample.”
- “Right now it’s a fight against the separation and constant dumbing-down of culture, and I’m standing in the middle of it.”
- “So when I used to go to fashion shows with my boys and we’d be eight deep, it was almost like a civil rights, like a sit-in. They wouldn’t even let us in.”
- “I fight in my position of being a very commercial celebrity boyfriend, I fight to push culture forward every chance I get.”
- “I only frown because paparazzi ask me dumba-- s--- all the time, and I think about changing the world.”
West went on to play “songs from his new album off his laptop, engaging only once in an a capella version of the song 'New Slaves,'” reports The Beast. “He danced rhythmically — at times, as if he were alone in his own studio ... The first track was a collaboration with Daft Punk. He also played 'Black Skinheads' and several other tracks that had the crowd practically trampling each other.”
Wilkinson shared a few more exclusive photos with us from last night's listening party:
SEE ALSO: The most gag-worthy quotes from Kanye West's NYT interview