Kanye West ‘The Breakfast Club’ & ‘Sway In The Morning’ Interviews (VIDEO)

Kanye West has put on his old voice and decided to get on a press run in New York while he brings the Yeezus tour to MSG and the Barclays Center. While in the NYC he stops by Power 105’s The Breakfast Club with Angela Yee, DJ Envy and Charlemagne The God then the next day he hits Sirius/XM’s Sway In The Morning show with long time friend, Sway Calloway. At first I was reluctant to post the interviews because I love Kanye West dearly and didn’t want to feed into the train wreck that is his Fashion Campaign. Unfortunately, after watching both interviews repeatedly, I couldn’t help but speak on it.

Let’s start with his interview with The Breakfast Club.

Here we see Kanye, calm for the most part. He discusses his issues with society enslaving Black Americans. Pigeon holing us into one career path and not allowing us to progress. This is something I agree with Kanye on. We are definitely expected to be one thing and one thing only and to progress past that puts fear in people’s heart. What I also enjoyed about the interview is that Charlemagne was that much needed reality check for Kanye and Kanye (hopefully) received the message well. Kanye says it himself that he has no one to go to for HONEST feedback. Kanye is completely surrounded by “Yes Men” and there is no one there to tell Kanye when he is f***ing up.  Charlemagne said what a lot of us were thinking. Yeezus wasn’t a great album, Money doesn’t equal freedom, Ye is a walking/talking contradiction and Kanye brings a lot of stress upon himself. I understand that Kanye wants to be a billionaire and subsequently a part of the high fashion world. I understand that he wants to leave a legacy for his daughter. But the way he is going about it is all wrong. I’m totally here for proverbially kicking the door down but the incoherent rants, the spazzing, the denouncing, he’s only going to make it so that NO ONE will deal with him.

Then there is the Sway In The Morning interview that is really painful to watch.

In this interview, much like with all of his recent interviews, Kanye discusses the high end fashion industry and his inability to break in. He discusses the industry being classist and wanting to control you. He talks about being shut out so much that he rattles the cage to be seen. Then he begins to go at Mark Parker, CEO of Nike Inc, while subsequently still asking him for investment dollars for his company, DONDA. This is where Jay Z and Kanye West differ. Do you slap someone in the face and ask them for money or do you attract the bees with honey? There are ways to get your point across to the powers that be without backhanding them, then wondering why they won’t give you the time of day. These brands don’t want to back a 40 year old man throwing a tantrum that could lose his fame and influence in a day with ONE bad publicity stunt. They want to get behind someone a little more stable. Kanye is lucky that he’s even had the opportunity to work with the likes of Louis Vuitton, Nike, Giuseppe, etc. Don’t burn those bridges you want to cross again.

Then it gets crazy. 17 minutes in, Sway, like everyone else, encourages Kanye to stop seeking acceptance from those who don’t want him and to trailblaze and do it himself. What does Kanye do? Attack Sway. “You ain’t got the answers, Sway! I’ve been doing this more than you!” he screams as Sway offers what is seemingly some good advice.

Both Sway and Charlemagne are saying my exact thoughts. Kanye isn’t a billionaire but I have seen people with $10 in their pocket create things that were impactful. Kanye likens himself to Steve Jobs and Steve wasn’t a billionaire when he created Apple. He was a college kid with a creative mind a some business sense. Kanye has to understand that it isn’t the money and it definitely doesn’t have to take a billion dollars to make something impactful to the people.  If he wants to create a new shoe or a new fashion line, he can do that…he is KANYE WEST. He doesn’t understand that even Apple wasn’t APPLE INC fresh out of the gate. He doesn’t grasp the “Started From The Bottom” concept at all because he is Kanye West and thinks that French and Italian designers give a flying F*** about who/what a Kanye West is. Kanye wants to go from being a fashion admirer to being Ralph Lauren in a day and it doesn’t work that way. Just being Kanye West, in an industry full of people where your last name holds a legacy, is not enough.

Kanye is immature, irrational and business wise, he’s not there yet. What hurts the most is that the people Kanye West is REALLY attacking is US, the fans. Those of us that support every Kanye West show, buy every album, camp out for every shoe and buy all of the merch at every Yeezus pop up shop. I spent $500 to see Kanye for the first time back when “Graduation” dropped and have seen him live endless times ever since. It’s not fair that Kanye isolates those that love him to beg for acceptance from those that don’t care about him unless they can make money off of him. He is now the prime example of a “New Slave.”