Kanye West 登上《PAPER》雜誌封面，並談論兒時在中國生活經歷

Kanye West 日前登上了《PAPER》雜誌「American Dream」（美國夢）特刊封面，並由著名攝影師 Jackie Nickerson 為其打造了一組形象大片。在接受《PAPER》雜誌作者 Gabby Bess 的採訪中，Yeezy 暢談了自己心中「美國夢」的定義，並回憶到 10 歲時在中國生活的經歷及對自己成長的影響（見以下原文) ; 此外，Dr.West 還講述了 15 歲時在 Gap 工作的經歷如何漸漸打開了他對時尚世界的興趣大門，之後一路走來獲得今天的成就；當然，除了自己所鍾愛的服飾設計外，Kanye 還以自己的音樂作品為時間線，將不同時期的心理狀態向讀者「解譯」。感興趣的朋友可前去《PAPER》官方網站在線閱讀文章完整內容。

When I was 10 years old I lived in China, and at the time they used to come up to me and rub my face to see if the color would rub off. It was really fucked up, but I feel like it was preparing me for a world perspective that a lot of my friends who never got a chance to travel didn’t get. Now my perspective, a lot of times, is so much wider than someone who’s limited to the concept of any particular so-called world that’s not the real world. I take into account all of what’s happening, from the boom of business in San Francisco to the poverty in Africa — and that is wide perspective. When I was in fifth grade in China, when kids would come up to me and touch my face, it was like they had never seen a black person before, but that was a while ago. That was 20 years ago and of course we’ve come a long way now. That’s not the current state of mind. On “Never Let Me Down” I rapped, “Racism’s still alive, they just be concealing it,” but for the next generation that’s not necessarily true. Racism is something that’s taught, but for the new post-Internet, post-iPad kids that have been taught to swipe before they read, it’s just not going to affect them as much. They realize that we are one race. We’re different colors — my cousins and I are different shapes and we’re all from one family. We’re all from one family called the human race. It’s simple as that. This race is up against some interesting things — poverty, war, global warming, classism — and we have to come together to beat this. It’ll only be as a collective that we can beat this, and we can. We can create a better world for ourselves.