If you thought you’d heard enough Kanye West rants to last a lifetime, well, the rapper just delivered the rant of a
lifetime on Ellen.
Host Ellen DeGeneres set him off on a seven-minute tirade when she asked if he ever regrets his tweet-before-you-
think rants, referring to his wife Kim Kardashian’s comment that he needs “a board of directors” before going on
Twitter. His reply? “Nope. What’s the point in thinking?”
Always quick on her feet, Ellen suggested that Kanye should’ve asked Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg for $53
million via Facebook, not Twitter. Good point!
Kanye was okay with that part – in fact, he recalled having dinner with Mark and his wife and “told them how I
wanted to help the world and he said he’d help me”. The 38-year-old then compared himself to the character in Will
Smith’s Pursuit of Happyness, “trying to sell this bone density machine”.
That’s when it went Full Kanye. For the next seven minutes, Kanye ranted about how he just “cares about people”…
but first, he needs the money to do so.
“I feel that if I had more resources, I could help more people,” Kanye said, passionately. “I have ideas that can make
the human race existence within our 100 years better. Period.”
In one moment, Kanye delved into the #OscarsSoWhite controversy and the “glass ceiling” for black people, which
he says “ain’t no joke”.
The next, he talked about creative people like him being stifled: “Picasso is dead. Steve Jobs is dead. (Walt) Disney is dead. Name someone living that you can name in the same breath as them. We’re one race, the human race, we’re a blip in the existence of the universe and we’re constantly trying to pull each other down.
“It’s like, I’m shaking talking about it. I feel I can make a difference while I’m here. I feel I can make a difference through my skill set.”
It also got personal. Kanye talked about how his late mother Donda was the first black female chair of the English department of Chicago State University, while his father Ray, a psychology major, was living in homeless shelters five years ago to study the people.
And then there was the downright bizarre. He referred to his condition of “synaesthesia”, or the ability to “see sounds”. He talked about trying to collaborate with budget brand Payless to “take away bullying”, with his head in his hands.
It all wrapped up with his acknowledgment that people will call him “Whacko Kanye”, and this conclusion: “I’m sorry, daytime television. I’m sorry for the realness.”
Ellen summed it up best on Twitter afterwards:
Tune in to Ellen today for the full rant at 12pm on Nine. Catch up on 9now.
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