Kanye West 談論 Yeezy Season 2 飽受爭議以及為總統競選開始做準備

Kanye West 在 VMA 上宣佈參加 2020 年總統競選的消息無疑成為了近期最讓人津津樂道的話題，這是芝加哥 Rapper 的又一次口出狂言還是激動情緒之下的「玩笑」？也許只有 Yeezy 本人才知道。日前，Kanye 就接受了《Vanity Fair》的專訪，就一些個人爭議話題侃侃而談。其中包括被公眾指責毫無新意看點的 Yeezy Season 2 系列、潛在的政治主題及繞亂其他設計師發佈會時間安排。當然，還有參加總統競選。從採訪回答中可知，Kanye 並沒有「忘記」此事，而是分外認真對待，甚至已經為競選做準備，例如如何平衡今後創意企劃與競選工作時間。感興趣的朋友可以點擊此處閱讀完整專訪，或者瀏覽以下我們為大家摘選出的話題性問答。

There was a continuation in terms of the clothes. It wasn’t a 180-degree turn like some designers do each season. Why is it important to you to develop in that way?

I’m not trying to particularly give a design opinion. I have friends who are designers who are so amazingly prolific that if I was even to try to step into that territory, I’d be completely crushed. But there’s something about the way clothes fit and feel and the emotion that they give you and the details of them that I’ve been passionate about and addicted to since I was five years old. And now it’s just taking a vintage sample from Bob Melet [owner of Melet Mercantile, a vintage-fashion resource] and wondering who was the genius behind this track jacket from 1975?

How did they do that? What zipper are they using? How do we make our proposition more authentic? This is a sportswear concept and sportswear is less than 100 years old. If we’re lucky, we live 100 years. Sportswear is less than 100 years old, so we are in the middle of the expression right now for what this will say for human existence. There’s something that the Romans, they presented, that the Egyptians, they presented. With us, we have a time now that’s a mix between music, the advent of rock ’n’ roll to hip-hop, the 808 drum machine, the concept of tennis shoes or the sweatshirt. Where can that go?

Are you still thinking of running in 2020?
Oh, definitely.

When you said that at the V.M.A.s, I thought the reaction was surprising. People didn’t seem to dismiss the idea. You would have thought there would be more of an outcry.

Especially from the six years of this misconception or the six years I went through of “We don’t like Kanye.” And then as soon as I said that, it was like, “Wait a second, we would really be into that, because actually if you think about it, he’s extremely thoughtful. Every time he’s ever gotten in trouble, he was really jumping in front of a bullet for someone else. He’s probably the most honest celebrity that we have.” I didn’t approach that because I thought it would be fun. It wasn’t like, Oh, let’s go rent some jet skis in Hawaii. No, the exact opposite. I sit in clubs and I’m like, Wow, I’ve got five years before I go and run for office and I’ve got a lot of research to do, I’ve got a lot of growing up to do. My dad has two masters degrees. My mom has a PhD, she used to work at Operation PUSH. Somehow the more and more creative I get, the closer and closer I get to who I was as a child. When I was a child, I was holding my mom’s hand at Operation PUSH. I think it’s time. Rap is great.

It’s fun. It’s fun to be a rock star, and I’ll never not be one I guess, but there’ll be a point where I become my mother’s child. With all the things I’ve done that people would consider to be accomplishments, what’s the point where I become the person that Donda and Raymond West raised? My parents’ child.

Will you have to give up your creative projects if you run?

I think about that. Because it’s so therapeutic for me to sit and work for seven days. We work on the collection year-round, every day to the office, we have an amazing team, but then you have that seven days before the show where you just really, really don’t sleep. . . . I have to stay creative. The whole point is to have someone [in office] that’s creative, that’s around amazing creatives. This is my theory: I think the world can be helped through design, so it’s very important that I stay around creative, forward thinkers. It’s very important that I continue to design, to be in practice of trying to make the best decisions possible. I hate politics. I’m not a politician at all. I care about the truth and I just care about human beings. I just want everyone to win, that’s all I can say, and I think we can. . . . I think the words “dreamer” and “passionate” diminish my will to execute. Because to be passionate about something or to dream about something does not say that it was executed. So when we talk about second season, it was executed. When we went and had a great season with stores, with Barneys and Luisa Via Roma and all these amazing stores, that was executed. When those Yeezys came out and sold what they did, that was executed. You can have the longest intellectual artistic conversation about anything and it all means nothing without execution.