Kanye West Talks Slavery, Kim Kardashian on Debut Bret Easton Ellis Podcast

When you think about it, obviously. Obviously, Bret Easton Ellis deserves a podcast for all his hard work fighting with Nikke Finke and making The Canyons. And obviously, the premiere episode should feature Kanye West talking about "product" and disposable culture and bootlegs of Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom and what life was like before multiplexes and Kim Kardashian.

Obviously.

You can listen to the podcast here, but so far our favorite part is Ellis lavishly praising Yeezus and comparing it to 12 Years a Slave, to which Kanye responds:
"I don't think my skill-set is high enough to sonically create something that would be on the textbook level of 12 Years a Slave. I don't know how to play a piano."

Sure!
And also, regarding his fashion label and not getting ALL the creative freedom:

"I felt like the main character [in 12 Years a Slave]. And what I'm dealing with even as a mega-popular rich celebrity, you know, 'Fuck you, who do you think you are to complain about anything?' situation that I'm in. In the past when I've dealt with attempting to create in other fields, or attempting to create in clothing. I've kind of been on this campaign that started with, ironically, my song, 'New Slaves.' Where I was sitting in Paris and dealing with all of these companies that I had promoted, and I saw my friends promote it. And the reason, literally, why they would sell on Barneys' floors is because me and Jay Z and everyone wore it. It'd be something that maybe I kind of discovered four years before then me and Don C started putting it on-trend.

Then you start doing more research and say, 'Hey, I want to be a part of the creative conversation and be able to make money off of that also.' They stop you right there and say, 'You can't be a part of that conversation,' or they'll give you a one-off. At Louis Vuitton I did one shoe. At Nike I did two shoes but they spread them apart over four years and they had the most impact possible. I kind of saw that side of what it was, as a creative, to be free, the parallel to the main character in Twelve Years a Slave. When it was taken away from me, it felt like what it felt like as a creative to be enslaved."

We have no idea how this bit of magic came about, but it has a precedent: Kanye’s multimedia company DONDA cut a trailer for Ellis's The Canyons, to which Mr. West provided the music.