Kanye on Kimye Criticism: People Don’t Understand Interrracial Relationships

At the Cannes Lions communications and advertising festival in France on Tuesday, Kanye West  got candid about his relationship with Kim Kardashian, his wedding, and his career.

On why people constantly bash him and Kim: “I always say that if Vogue had come out before the ‘Bound‘ video then everyone would have been like, ‘Oh it’s OK’ and that’s the endorsement.

It took something established like Vogue to make everything OK and we had to wait. Like we had the wedding and then they were like ‘that’s cool now’ because we were told by people who endorsed it.

You have to be able to take the lashes when people don’t understand.

Two years of people not understanding an interracial relationship, two years of people not understanding the idea of the art world meets the pop world, you have to take the lash and be able to swim in the backlash.”

On his arrogant persona: “It’s like we are the creative with teeth, we have the gut feeling that we know that the idea is more important than our personal well-being.

So a lot of times I will say things that are not for my personal well-being which I think for people to create for their personal well-being is a selfish thing to do and you’re creating to make your life better rather than everyone else’s life better.

I get bashed so much but create so much, just know that if you want to be a boxer you’re going to get your face beaten constantly but then you may end up being a Mayweather or an Ali at the end of the day.”

A few more quotes from Kanye at the event;

• “The best thing about the fall of BlackBerry and the rise of Apple is the win of creativity.”
• “Black people are allowed to wear big chains and name what they have on, and say out loud what stuff costs.”
• “I want to take my position as visual and influential to raise the power of a generation.”
• “I couldn’t have rapped if Jay Z didn’t endorse me, Eminem wouldn’t have been successful if Dr Dre hadn’t endorsed him.”