Musician Quotes

“I'm not always going to say things the perfect way, the right way. But I'm going to say how I feel.”

“I spent 80% of my time working on this, and 20% of my time working on music. Why do you think the song 'Niggas in Paris' is called 'Niggas in Paris?' 'Cause niggas was in Paris!”

“It's only led me to complete awesomeness at all times. It's only led me to awesome truth and awesomeness. Beauty, truth, awesomeness. That's all it is.”

“I always want to be the best at whatever I'm attempting to do.”

“She [Kim Kardashian] was always my muse, now she's become other designers' muses.”

“I love the fact that I'm bad at [things], you know what I'm saying? I'm forever the 35-year-old 5-year-old. I'm forever the 5-year-old of something.”

“I'm on the pursuit of awesomeness, excellence is the bare minimum.”

“Thirty-three-years-old, still creating art. It's rage, it's creativity, it's pain, it's hurt, but it's the opportunity to still have my voice get out there through music.”

“I'm still just a kid learning about minimalism, and he's a master of it. It's just really such a blessing, to be able to work with him. I want to say that after working with Rick, it humbled me to realize why I hadn't - even though I produced "Watch the Throne"; even though I produced "Dark Fantasy" - why I hadn't won Album of the Year yet.”

“You've got to be really dialed into exactly who you are to the one hundredth power or you're just everyone else.”

“My wife has dated broke black dudes.”

“We are the creatives with teeth. We know ideas are more important than our personal wellbeing.”

“You know that one auntie, you don't wanna be rude,...But every holiday, nobody eatin' her food.”

“I'm giving all that I have in this life. I'm opening up my notebook and I'm saying everything in there out loud.”

“Art is to be free. Design is to fix.”

“What I feel like - 'cause I wanna be married, of course - I feel like the type of girl I would be with is a fellow superhero. So we get that 'already flying and now we're just flying together' thing.”

“It's a tough world out there. You're going to prepare yourself for politics, bad bosses, hating employees - and usually when you're the absolute best, you get hated on the most.”

“When I think of competition it's like I try to create against the past. I think about Michelangelo and Picasso, you know, the pyramids.”

“I hate when I'm on a flight and I wake up with a water bottle next to me like oh great now I gotta be responsible for this water bottle.”

“I am Warhol. I am the No. 1 most impactful artist of our generation. I am Shakespeare in the flesh.”

“If you ask me a question like what is your greatest accomplishment, it should be what I’m about to do”

“I would never want a book's autograph. I am a proud non-reader of books.”

“I think that’s a responsibility that I have, to push possibilities, to show people, this is the level that things could be at. So when you get something that has the name Kanye West on it, it’s supposed to be pushing the furthest possibilities. I will be the leader of a company that ends up being worth billions of dollars, because I got the answers. I understand culture. I am the nucleus.”

“It is true you can be successful without [college], but this is a hard world, a real world, and you want every advantage you can have. I would suggest to people to do all that you can. When I dropped out of school, I had worked in the music industry and had checks cut in my name from record labels and had a record deal on the table, and when I wasn’t successful and Columbia said, ’We’ll call you,’ I had to go back and work a telemarketing job, go back to the real world, and that’s how life is. Life is hard. Take advantage of your opportunities.”

“[My favourite song is] "All Along the Watchtower." The Jimi Hendrix cover.”