Kanye West’s ‘Best, Illest Quotes’ From His Oxford Guild Business Society Lecture
“OK, everyone please be completely quiet, because I can literally hear a whisper, and it’ll throw off my stream of consciousness, and when I get my stream of consciousness going that’s when I give the best, illest quotes.”
BMWs and Benz’s will only make you feel empty.
“It feels like people do everything in life to get this BMW, this Benz, to get this townhome, to get 2.5 kids exactly. One of them has to be small, y’know!
“And you’re looking for this moment where you sit in your BMW after all the work you’ve done and all the accolades you get, and you somehow think you’re gonna get that level of joy that my daughter had when she received those [toy] wolves [from artist Vanessa Beecroft]. And when you’re sitting in traffic in your BMW, it’s something that feels empty. To everyone who reaches that point. This concept of the selfish human, this idea of separation by race, or gender, or religion, or age, or my favorite thing to hate, class.”
A $5,000 sweater shouldn’t exist — clothing should be like food.
“It’s illegal to not wear clothes, and also possibly too cold. That means someone is imposing an idea on you that should legally have to do! Clothing should be like food. There should never be a $5,000 sweater. You know what should cost $5,000? A car should be $5,000. And you know who should work on the car? The people that work on the $500,000 cars. All the best talent in the world needs to work for the people. And I am so fucking serious about this concept that I will stand in front of anyone and fight for it. Because I was 14 and middle class. I know what it felt like to not get what I have.”
Time is not like expensive luggage — you can never get it back.
“Time is the only luxury. It’s the only thing you can’t get back. If you lose your luggage – I’m not gonna say the obvious brand of luggage that I’d normally say because I’ve got a meeting with them soon – if you lose your expensive luggage at the airport, you can get that back. You can’t get the time back.”
“The Matrix” is really a complex metaphor of modern life.
“I compared it like, when the hundred guys come at Neo, those are opinions, that’s perception, that’s tradition. Attacking people from every which angle possible. If you have a focus wide and master senseis like Laurence Fishburne and you have a squad behind you, you literally can put the world in slow motion.”
If Kanye West can remove Kanye West’s ego, there’s hope for everyone.
“One of my biggest Achilles heels has been my ego. And if I, Kanye West, the very person, can remove my ego, I think there’s hope for everyone.
“One of the most memorable things about MBDTF was Nicki Minaj, and the fact that she kicked my ass, on my own song, on one of the best albums … the best album – I’m just saying what the critics said – of the last 25 years. The best album of the past 25 years that I spent a year and a half making, out there. I was exiled from my country, it was a personal exile, but exile. To come back and deliver my magnum opus of a work, and to be outshined … to be beat by a girl, basically.
“This was necessary. I think it was one of the most important points of working on that album, was to not stop her from her moment because of how good she is.”
Kanye West actually can’t remove Kanye West’s ego.
“There’s a Bible saying: ‘No weapon formed against me shall prosper.’ Recently I’ve been doing interviews and I’ve had to go back to this verse because I don’t think there’s a living celebrity with more weapons formed against them, but I also don’t think there’s one more prosperous.”
Don’t have the mentality that suppresses humanity.
“My goal, if I was going to do art, fine art, would have been to become Picasso or greater.
“That always sounds so funny to people, comparing yourself to someone in the past that has done so much, and in your life you’re not even allowed to think that you can do as much. That’s a mentality that suppresses humanity.”
Kanye West cries for the people and their daughters. That’s all.
“People say to me, ‘You’re successful, what are you crying about?’ I’m crying about the people. I’m crying about their daughters. Our daughters, as one family. What good is it? What good is anything that everyone can’t have? Every “ism.” They think we’re done with racism. What about elitism, what about separatism, what about classism? That’s all.”
