First there was Nicki and Beyonce, then there was the McCartney, Kanye and Rihanna supergroup, and now it looks like two more music giants are joining forces (an industry-wide “Avengers”-style team-up is surely the next logical step). According to a very revealing interview Kanye gave with Ryan Seacrest this morning, he and Taylor Swift are hitting the studio together. As he put it: "Yeah, she wants to get in the studio and we’re definitely going to go in."
Kanye and Taylor have a rocky history. Back in 2009, Kanye interrupted Taylor’s VMA speech for best female video famously grabbing the mic and yelling “Imma let you finish, but Beyonce had one of the best videos of all time" (a moment he almost rehashed with Beck at this year's Grammys). But alas, it seems the pair have buried the hatcthet. Photos from this years ceremony show the pair engagng in an enthusiastic handshake (apparently Kanye apologized), and now they are apparently putting their musical skills — and considerable revenue-generating powers — to good use. In fact, Kanye says, after this year's Beck-interruption fake-out: “Taylor Swift came up to me right afterwards — literally right afterwards — and tells me that I should’ve went onstage. This is the irony of my life.”
During the interview, Kanye also spoke thoughtfully about Sunday’s controversial Grammy stage crash. Calling Beck "one of the nicest guys and one of the most respected musicians in the game" he takes back his claim that Beck disrespects artistry, saying that he never meant to take away from Beck's moment and that "it was kind of a joke like the Grammys themselves.”
Denying that the interruption had anything to do with racism ("racism is a distraction to humanity"), he had some surprisingly insightful thoughts to share about his role as an industry gadfly:
"The weird thing is like, and I don’t feel like I have the right to take away from people’s moments, but the reality of it is — and case in point by who came up to me right afterwards — is it’s almost like a chiropractor. You know, you just get a little crook out like, “Wow, this crook has been there!” It’s just a little jolt of truth, right? And then you know, everyone feels better after the fact, or everyone is way more famous after the fact, or everyone sells way more albums after the fact, and then Kanye just goes on being an a**hole to everyone."
Still, he stands by his defense of Beyonce, referring to how Maroon 5 shouted out to "College Dropout" when they won Best New Artist back in 2005. As for him and Beck, they're totally chill in his books: "We’ll still go play basketball and stuff [unless] he doesn’t want to do it."
West also talked further about his collaboration with Rihanna and Paul McCartney, during which he reflected on the similarities between himself and John Lennon: "I might be a little bit more angst than Paul. And remember the last time when Paul had somebody really angst working with them, the type of music they made?"
It's all very fascinating, and very Kanye. Read the full interview here.
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