Kanye West Talks 'Swish,' Presidential Run, & Fashion
Kanye West has a lot on his plate these days. In addition to designing sneakers and clothing, the hip-hop mogul is working on his long-awaited new album Swish and gearing up for a 2020 presidential run (yes, he’s serious).
Just hours after unveiling Yeezy Season 2 at New York Fashion Week, he sat down with Vanity Fair to discuss Swish, his presidential plans, and why sweatshirts “are the way of the future.”
During last month’s VMAs, he announced that he was running for president, but some were skeptical as to whether he was serious. “Oh, definitely,” he said when questioned.
So will he have to give up his creative projects when he runs? “I think about that,” he said. “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.”
As for Swish, there’s no set release date. “I’m not sure. I’m not worried about the years. I’m worried about the life and the body of work that I can put out while I’m breathing,” he said.
But despite his busy schedule, his wife and daughter remain his priority. “It’s family first.”
On Yeezy Season 2: “My toe is barely in the door, my foot is barely on the gas, I’ve got to press down harder. The most successful thing about the second season was just doing the second season.”
On his presidential plans: “I want everyone to win. When I run for president, I’d prefer not to run against someone. I would be like ‘I want to work with you.’ … 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.”
On becoming more like his parents: “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.”
On sweatshirts: “I think sweatshirts are the way of the future. And we worked so hard on our development of our actual sweatshirts to make them fall a certain way, the dyeing that we do, the type of washing where we take a thicker Japanese stretch French terry and wash it down to where it keeps its original qualities but then feels so thin. . . . Sweatshirts are fucking important. That might sound like the funniest quote ever. How can you say all this stuff about running for president in 2020 and then say sweatshirts are important? But they are. Just mark my words. Mark my words like Mark Twain.”
On his new album: “It’s currently called Swish. I’m forgetting even what the last name of it was now.”
On Swish: “That’s like a sonic landscape, a two-year painting. That song I played [‘Fade’] has been a year and a half in the making and it may be still a year from being complete. But it was to let people get a glimpse at the painting.”