Kanye West Shares Full Charlamagne Interview — Watch
Ever since Kanye West’s return to Twitter, he’s been teasing his interview with Charlamagne Tha God, the co-host of the popular morning radio show The Breakfast Club. Today he’s shared full video of that interview, which is apparently 105 minutes long. The footage features Kanye and Charlamagne seated in a quiet, empty room, and later walking together in 300 acres of land Kanye bought to develop property on. (“I’m gonna be one of the biggest real estate developers of all time,” he asserts at the end of the interview.)
They begin by discussing Kanye’s 2016 mental breakdown — Kanye later reveals he feared the doctors would drug and kill him during his hospitalization — as well as Kim Kardashian’s robbery and kidnapping in Paris earlier that year (Kanye blamed himself because he hired her security). Kanye credits the fallout from his feud with Taylor Swift — which he attributes to his decline in radio airplay — for indirectly causing his breakdown.
There’s also a discussion of therapy (Charlamagne goes every Friday at 3PM, whereas “the world” is Kanye’s therapy), Kanye’s relationship with Jay-Z (they’re good, but “I was hurt about them not coming to the wedding”), racism via coded language in the media and the fashion industry, the inadequacy of language as people’s sole means of communication, and Kanye’s love of the word “stream.”
One key quote: “That’s what I’m big on: Stop strategizing so much. Stop setting so many plays. Stop doing things only based in fear. The universe will assist you when you’re acting in love.” He also talks about his famous “rants” (a word Kanye did not shy away from to describe his lengthy speeches) — “I think we’re in a place now where bravery is more important than perfection… I actually think that the rants came from a place of bravery.” Another good one: “I never had the empathy for people who lacked confidence. I had so much of it, I had no idea what it was like to be without it.” He says seeing Harriet Tubman on a $20 made him want to get into Bitcoin: “Why you gotta keep reminding us about slavery? Why don’t you show us — put Michael Jordan on a $20 bill.”
Speaking of which: Kanye’s controversial political views do come up. Although the interview was recorded on 4/18, five days before he started tweeting about Trump, he responds to a question about the president around the 43:30 mark and continues with complex thoughts on Obama and Trump for like half an hour. This was also filmed a day before he started announcing all those new albums on Twitter, but none of those projects are discussed beyond Kanye saying the music he’s making now is in the realm of “Real Friends.”
The interview is not embeddable, so check it out at YouTube or WeGotLove.com. TMZ also excerpted some clips, which you can find below.
On the Taylor Swift situation indirectly triggering Kanye’s breakdown:
On his fear of being killed in the hospital:
On Kanye’s relationship with Jay-Z: