But West might as well have been some dude I met at a party. When I met Kanye at his house, an Aston Martin sat in the driveway, Andy Warhol pieces hung on the wall and I walked into the most enormous closet I’ve ever seen. He is willing to put his inner thoughts, unedited, in public view and sees no point in waiting for old thinkers to tell him what or when to do what he wants. The parallels between his process and our new internet-dependent way of life seem intentional. In the studio and at his house in the Hollywood Hills, as he finished the album, he takes this same social networking approach to creation, bouncing between associates-Esthero, Consequence, A-Trak, Hype Williams, Fonzworth Bentley and Plain Pat, to name a few-absorbing their suggestions before making pivotal decisions on a vocal drop or lyric. The first single from 808’s & Heartbreak, “Love Lockdown,” went up on West’s blog in September and was re-upped a week later with changes conspicuously in line with the criticisms made in the comments to the first post. He is breaking down the barrier between himself and the rest of us, and as a result, we feel like we’re a part of his life and art.Īnd we are.
From his absurdly readable blog (he writes it) at to his Glow in the Dark one man show and now his new stripped-bare album, 808’s & Heartbreak, West has become the world’s first interactive pop star. As the world knows, he went through some difficult personal times, and he appears to have emerged a changed man, simultaneously more mature in his attitude and more childlike in his lack of inhibition. Kanye West has become a brand synonymous with not just success, but innovation, and its CEO is as mercurial and provocative as Steve Jobs.īut this year was different for West. At the same time, of course, his music has dominated the pop charts, with seven of his own songs reaching the Top 20 of Billboard’s Hot 100-twice reaching number one-while countless productions for other artists peppered the mainstream with his ever-changing sound. His personal style-skinny jeans rising out of exclusive colorway sneakers matched with high fashion sunglasses-has influenced kids from Flatbush to Fukuoka, and now he is finishing work on his own menswear line, Pastelle, and designing a shoe for Nike named the Air Yeezy. Exactly five years later, he has done so in a way that even we could not have imagined. "Kanye West wants to make history.” That is how we began the Kanye West story in our December 2003 issue, his first cover.
KANYE 808S AND HEARTBREAK CD CASE FULL
After the jump, read the full story and interview from our new issue along with exclusive photos only available on. Our interest, however, goes beyond conjecture about his private life and heated auto-tune debates, so we went to Los Angeles a couple months ago and visited Kanye at his house and in the studio for our world exclusive cover story. 808's is already number one on iTunes, and he has been the primary topic of discussion on blogs, gossip columns and talk shows for the last month. While we will probably not sell a million copies of our magazine (we don't print that many), things are looking pretty good for Mr West. When we decided to put Kanye West on the front cover of our tenth anniversary issue, we didn't know our release date and his would coincide so perfectly: His new album, 808's & Heartbreak came out yesterday and FADER 58 is out today.
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