My Next Guest Needs No Introduction with David Letterman (2018) s02e01 Episode Script

1
[David Letterman] We come in here,
and suddenly we're in a higher place.
Actually get a sensation of floating.
[Kanye West] You know, I have this dream
of having grandkids
that can actually float
because they're so unprogrammed
and so pure,
-and it's like, "Look, I can float."
-[laughing]
[theme music playing]
Where's Kanye?
They're still downstairs.
Oh, God. I'm scared.
[man] Stand by, folks.
-Why don't you stand by? [laughs]
-Yeah, I will, sir.
Is that it? All right.
-[audience cheers]
-Oh, yes.
Thank you.
Thank you very much. No, no, no.
Hi. Have a seat.
Thank you very much, ladies and gentlemen.
I want to share something with you people.
It's my 19th anniversary.
Anybody have a guess as
to what I'm celebrating today?
What, sir?
Post heart attack?
You're close. I never had a heart attack.
Here's what I had.
[audience laughs]
No.
Nineteen years ago this very day,
I went in for an arthroscopic examination
of coronary artery disease, and they said,
"Son, you're not getting off the table,"
and they wheeled me
into the operating room,
and I had quintuple bypass surgery
19 years ago today, ladies and gentlemen.
[audience cheers and applauds]
So, you could be here on the night
I drop dead.
Does anybody know
who the guest is for the evening?
[audience] No.
I'll just tell you something.
I'm not a guy who gets scared easily.
I want this to go so well.
I want you people to be fascinated,
because this person is nothing
if not fascinating.
This person's personality is multifaceted,
and I'm uni-faceted.
[audience laughs]
Well, what do you think? Should we do it?
[audience cheers and applauds]
I want this to go well so badly.
All I can say is the electricity
in the room
is about to change for the better.
Ladies and gentlemen, do me a favor.
Please welcome
Kanye West.
[audience cheers and applauds]
Nice to see you.
[laughs]
-How are you?
-Good.
Have a seat.
So, you see what I'm saying, folks?
How you doing?
-Lovely.
-Lovely?
You have any questions for me?
[laughing]
I was gonna wait till we get rolling.
-Okay.
-Yeah.
-What'd you have for breakfast?
-[audience laughs]
Fried eggs.
Smoothie.
You have three meals a day?
-Yeah, sometimes a little more.
-Yeah?
Some in-between snacks, yeah.
How much do you weigh?
[audience laughs]
About
twenty over what I want to weigh.
-Twenty over what you want to weigh.
-[audience laughs]
-You look good, though!
-Thank you, bro.
I don't know what to eat.
Plant-based diet. Is that the way to go?
Hmm. [laughs]
I try out different kinda
Well, I call it "live-its."
"Live-its"?
Like the Rastas.
-Mm-hmm.
-They don't use the word "diet"
-'cause it has the word "die" in it, so
-[audience laughs]
Oh! That's great. Live-its!
As opposed to the diet,
because ultimately, it's the diet
that will kill you.
-[laughs] Yeah.
-Yeah.
How's the family?
Beautiful.
-You're a lucky man, you know?
-Mm-hmm.
When I was a father earlier on,
every night I had a routine,
and I think it's fairly common to parents.
It's time for bed, and you take,
in my case, Harry.
Take him upstairs, and first,
you would read him a book,
and then you would turn the lights out,
and you would put him in the crib,
and then you would sing a song,
and then one day, I put him in the crib
and I said,
"Okay, Harry, would you like a song?"
And Harry said, "No song!"
-[audience laughs]
-[West laughs]
What I want to know from you is
what songs do you sing to your kids
when you put them in the crib for bed?
Mm.
[laughs]
I just freestyle.
[laughing]
Yeah. You freestyle, and they're probably
good with that, right?
Yeah, but North is already in her,
"Don't sing that, Dad!"
Ah, so you're getting a little pushback
as well.
-Mm-hmm
-So it's not just me.
Because if they're gonna push back you,
then I don't feel so bad.
Exactly.
Tell me about your mom.
I know your mother, as for everyone,
is important to you,
and I'm fascinated about your father.
So, tell me about your mother,
your father,
and individual influences.
When my parents got divorced,
my mom moved to Chicago.
You were three or so?
I thought I was three
when they got divorced,
but then I was watching
a Behind the Music, and she was like,
"I got divorced right after I had
the baby," and I was like
[laughs]
Well, learn a little something every day.
Yeah. [laughs]
So the the way it worked out, I think
we were supposed to go week by week,
and then she got this job
in Chicago,
and my dad, I would see him spring breaks
and summers,
and my dad would just come in
with the most important
I don't wanna say "important."
I don't like to use that word.
He'd come in with something
that would hit me that I'd keep with me
moving forward. So, one of the things
that he came with last year
He was in town,
because he was having cancer treatment,
and he started to talk about power
versus force,
and I think about that
in all of my interactions,
where you don't have to start screaming.
It's, like, what do you have the power
to do and what don't you have to force
and how to go with the flow,
and then he went on to say
that he was working on something
and that was gonna be his legacy,
and I'm just looking like
[laughing] What about
The other thing about your father,
and you have a relationship with him,
and was it easy to get that relationship
after the separation
or the intermittent visits?
Yeah, and just
becoming more like him
and seeing my programming.
-Mm-hmm.
-Just genetic programming
and understanding where I would do
certain things
and how to not make the same mistakes.
But your mother refers to your father
as being a man,
if things weren't going his way,
actual injustice.
-Mm-hmm.
-Speak right up.
Maybe bang on the table.
Do you remember that about him?
Oh, yeah. That's my genetic coding.
You know, like,
my mom talked about moments
where my dad had ran onstage and
grabbed microphones
and did what he felt was right,
but, you know, he wasn't as famous as me,
so, like, he got into
a little bit less trouble, but
-Now this is a fascinating perspective.
-Yeah.
Because we have two examples
of the same behavior.
[West] Mm-hmm.
Looking at your father in that context,
what is your impression
of a guy who does that?
I love that.
I love people being
the maximum version of their character.
I love people being themselves.
Now tell me about the relationship
with your mother.
-Your mother was a Fulbright Scholar.
-Yeah.
You're in Chicago.
-She's an English Professor?
-Mm-hmm.
Is this where your love of language was
developed or uncovered or
generated?
Yeah, or it was just in my genetic code.
I just-- like, with my kids,
they are who they are already.
-You are just born who you are.
-That's right.
So, that's just in my code.
What were the circumstances under
which you and your mom go to China?
Oh. This was beautiful.
I went in fifth grade. At that time,
I learned how to speak Mandarin,
and Chinese people, at that time,
would come and rub my skin
to see if it would rub off,
because they didn't have
a lot of black people on TV,
and it just expanded my mind to think
about things not the way
Americans are programmed
to think about things
in the way the media presents things,
because I saw
a completely different version
of the way the media would present things,
and then later, you know, you go to Europe
and you see the way
the media presents things,
and then you get
all these different perspectives,
and it always made me challenge things.
-The death of your mother,
-Yeah.
as with anyone,
a crushing, suffocating life change,
but it's unavoidable.
Schedule is not predictive,
but it inspired work for you?
Definitely,
and it was a piece of my story,
and I wonder, sometimes,
when I think about when I heard
about Michael Jordan's father dying
and at the point that that happened
in his career and the way it parallels
to the point that it happened
in my career, and you say the universe
has no accidents,
and, you know, you want to ask God
why this happened and then you
you get into this place of
acceptance
with it, but everything was meant to be,
and everything happens
-at the time that is planned.
-Mm-hmm,
and the memory of your mother,
you carry it with you each day.
It's active in your life.
It's active with
who are her grandchildren?
Yeah, we see her inside of them
so much.
This would've been the funnest time
of her life
to have those kids
running around that house
and being able to, like,
go and buy them toys and
I remember my mother bought me a bear
that was multicolored,
and I was very into Takashi Murakami
at that time on that third album
Graduation, so she bought it.
She said it kinda, you know,
feels like Takashi Murakami,
and then I was sorta like,
"I don't want that.
That ain't no Takashi Murakami bear,"
and stuff like that,
and then she passed
you know, a few weeks after and I did
everything I could to find that bear
and place that bear on top
of all the Takashi Murakami stuff
I had in the house.
-Yeah.
-But you know, she's here
-Yes.
-with us, and she's guiding us, you know?
-People regarded you as a producer.
-Mm-hmm.
Not just a producer,
but a guy who's really a producer,
and you wanted also to add to that,
performance.
Not knowing anything
about the music world,
I don't know how big a deal it is
to be a producer
and then also be an artist.
You get these stigmas
when you get really good at something.
Before we brought back
this Renaissance era,
it was like, "You're a producer.
You're a producer-rapper.
This is all you could do."
And you know, my raps weren't as good
as the rapper rappers, and my backstory
wasn't as gangster as all the rappers,
so I understood why the kid
with the pink polo's raps were
not being accepted as much.
When I listened back to it,
I was like, "Aw man. I wasn't really
as good as I thought I was," but
[laughing]
But I had the confidence,
and this delusional confidence
to think that I could rap
as good as Jay-Z. You know?
Even to the point of not playing him beats
and saving them for myself,
-[audience laughs]
-which people, you know,
people think I'm crazy now.
They thought I was crazy then.
[laughing]
"You ain't finna play this beat for,
you ain't finna play Jesus Walks
for Jay-Z?"
[Letterman laughs]
[laughs] I was like, "Nah.
I'm gonna stash this one."
Yeah, yeah.
You mention Jay-Z and a friend of mine
who knows both, knows everybody,
said that Jay-Z is a narrator
in his music, and you are the character.
Is that a fair comparison?
Character. What kind of character
are we talking about?
Not the character in his narration,
but your music is me.
It's all me. It's from me.
-Okay.
-He is telling the story of anything.
I think we're both pretty self-centered
in our music.
You're a rapper, you know what I'm saying?
You're self-centered.
A artist which I will not mention,
because I'm not allowed to mention him
or any of his family members, has a nine--
No. Now, wait a minute.
That's fairly provocative.
What happened there?
[laughs] Well
Well, we had a little beef last year,
and
[both laugh]
But he has this line that I love
that says, "I told my story
and made his story."
Like "made his story" and "made history."
-Yeah.
-That's what we do. We tell our story,
and then people relate to that story,
and masses of people relate to that story,
but then people also latch onto that,
and if you switch anything to the story
of what you're supposed to do,
then you get, like, this backlash.
"No. You're my avatar.
You cannot say this.
You cannot think that." You know?
Like, I have a friend
that told me my power was my influence,
and I said, "My power
is the ability to not be influenced."
Wow. This is pretty good.
[laughing]
I wish somebody was recording this.
[West laughs]
I think you might have walked
by the library quickly, but
-I just love these ceramics.
-Oh, yeah. I didn't go in here,
because I didn't know if I was allowed
to come in here.
But these are fantastic.
They're an artist named Ueda
represented by Takashi Murakami.
So, Murakami is, like,
top three pop artists,
and he's a good friend of mine.
So, I just got these as, like,
my Christmas present to myself.
You're familiar with the cultural pursuit
of wabi-sabi in Japan?
This is what this house is,
wabi-sabi vibes.
Thank you. What do I win,
ladies and gentlemen?
You got to check out this bathroom.
Whoa.
Oh, jeez! That's fantastic!
But look at this good-looking guy
standing over there.
-Yeah.
-Come in here.
Maybe I could just move in here
at a modest rent. Is that possible?
Yeah. You could just rent out our bathtub,
actually.
[Letterman laughs] Oh, my goodness.
-You, my friend, are getting it done.
-Yeah.
[Letterman]
What do you represent in this process?
Yeah, I'm the creative director of Yeezy.
[Letterman] Your life is led,
or you are in the pursuit of art
in many different ways.
[West] I think I use art as a superpower
to protect myself in a capitalistic world,
and then I give it as a gift
to other people,
and also I can use it to
make money.
You don't have to agree,
but I know I look great now.
[both laugh]
People were saying,
"When you talk to Kanye,
how would you describe your look?"
And what I came up with was,
you're aware of Howard Hughes.
Mm-hmm.
And you're aware that he went through
a period where he was a recluse
and disappeared, and there was a guy
named Melvin Dummars
who was driving through the desert
in Nevada,
and an old coot-like guy waves down
Melvin Dummars, and Melvin Dummars
picks him up and takes him
where he's going,
and it turns out,
the guy was Howard Hughes.
Anyway,
Howard-Hughes-in-the-desert-old-coot
is kinda what I got going on.
-That's a vibe.
-Yeah.
[both laugh]
-Oh, it's more than a vibe, my friend.
-Yeah. [laughs]
I don't wanna look like an old guy
trying to look cool.
Mm-hmm.
I want to look like a cool old guy.
-Yeah.
-And I don't want my son making fun of me.
Yeah.
Can you stop that altogether?
Yeah. We can.
This kills me. This is your mom, right?
That's Eazy-E on the next one.
We call these shirts Spirit Shirts.
Like, these are like a window to the soul.
When I wear this Eazy-E T-shirt,
I do feel, like, the spirit of Eazy-E.
Like, when I have to go
and deal with some business meetings,
you know? Eazy-E was, like, an original
like, black business shark.
700s right here. So, these shoes,
the style is called a Dad Shoe.
You could just call it a shoe,
'cause you're a dad.
And now, "Dad,"
does that suggest I am off the
cool meter?
Nah, it was like this thing
where tastemakersstarted wearing
Dad Shoes
-I think, almost to be ironic.
-Yeah.
And I just take everything literal.
You know, every, like, literal--
like how Andy Kaufman just started
literally being a wrestler.
It wasn't, like, a play.
It was like, break his arm, everything.
-You invoked Andy Kaufman.
-Yeah.
Tell me what you knew of him.
What was the influence there?
What did he do to you, for you, anything?
He gave me courage.
Is that right?
Yeah. How do you deal with the media?
-Yeah.
-Here's an example. I'd far rather be
an Andy Kaufman than the majority
of the way people are letting the media,
like, push them around.
I'm in front of the joke.
The joke is on everyone else.
-I'll take these.
-That look fire. There you go.
Now, listen. He used to be on the old show
all the time.
-Mm-hmm.
-And at the end of his appearance
on the show, he would lean in,
and he said, "Now, be sure to send me
all the hate mail."
-Really?
-[Letterman laughs]
I just loved that. I thought,
"This is fantastic."
-It's alternative sources of energy.
-Yeah.
You can take, especially coming up
from the south side of Chicago,
you could take your energy from people
telling you you can't do stuff.
-Sure.
-Even, like, working on fashion.
Everyone was like,
"You can't do clothing."
-Yeah.
-And it just gave me more energy.
[Letterman] Yeah.
You know, we have no money.
Oh. We have a not-for-profit arm.
We'll call it "Letterman Swag."
-That's fire.
-Kanye.
How do I look? Do I look okay,
or do I look like,
"Oh, my God. What's he up to?"
Look like a artist.
Balenciaga. Are you kidding me?
Wait a second.
Is that a Balenciaga in there?
That's what I think it says, yeah.
-Sebastian!
-[Letterman laughs]
I've heard you refer to Hermès
as the pinnacle.
-Yeah.
-In what sense?
I look at myself like the great-great-
great-great-great-great granddad of Yeezy.
-Yeah.
-And this is the Hermès of sportswear.
-[West] Well, do you like this color?
-Yeah, that's nice.
I feel like Yeezy is like your vibe,
for real. It's like the new
Like someone would've went to Ralph Lauren
back in the days or something.
I feel like Yeezy is like the new
Heretofore, I never knew
what I was wearing,
never cared what I was wearing.
Somebody just handed it to me
and said, "Put it on."
Yeezy does look good on Dave, though,
right? It's, like, believable.
Oh, I like these.
This is exactly where I wanna be.
Oh, buddy!
It's like when I used to work at the Gap,
bro. You know?
Now, what are we looking at, retail?
You know, we're working on the prices
a little bit
-[Letterman laughs]
-right now.
But if Velcro had been invented first,
would there be zippers?
You know, it's really a deep question
for me, because we--
Thank you very much.
We spend a lot of time inventing something
that's past the zipper now.
Past the zipper? Wow! This is advanced.
I really like seeing David in my shit,
though, seriously. It's fire.
A whole new demographic: near-death.
[both laugh]
I'm gonna return these.
Well, you might wanna not pass on those.
You might wanna pull up with these
at your son's school or something.
They're, like, $1,000 on the aftermarket.
[laughs]
Oh, so people might chase him
for the shoes.
Yeah, they go up.
Yikes, that's pretty impressive.
Yes.
-Yeah.
-Oh, buddy!
I think this is it.
Yeah.
Let me know when the sale starts.
-Spring? Is that when you change it? Okay.
-Yeah.
Show Kim your outfit. I dressed Dave.
[Kim Kardashian West]
Oh, my. You're a new man!
-Yep.
-You look really good.
I know. I feel really good,
and this is stuff,
even if I was not doing this,
and if somebody could drive me
to the mall, I'd buy this.
-Really?
-Yeah. I like the colors.
I like the fit. I love the shoes.
And so there you go.
-[West] Yeah.
-Are you gonna let him have it?
Well, no. We're paying for it!
We're not just here
so I can get an outfit. [laughs]
Yeah. Yeah.
-Thank you very much.
-[Kardashian West] No, I love it.
Thank you
for letting us invade your house.
The newest album, Ye. The cover
I was taken by the iconic shot
of the Teton Mountains
in Teton National Park in Wyoming.
And the caption under the mountains,
"I hate being bi-polar, it's awesome."
And I just thought, "Wow."
What a tremendous way of condensing
for people who don't really understand
what this is. I thought it was
lovely execution.
Wow, thank you. It was a image I saw
It was, like, written on the side
of a garage or something
on a Instagram post,
and I just thought it was a
lighthearted take on it, but it's
it's kinda not accurate, 'cause actually,
when you ramp up, I ramp up,
and I go high, like--
What does that mean, when you "ramp up"?
What are we talking about?
Ramp is like when you're bi-polar,
if you don't take medication every day
to keep you at a certain state,
you have a potential to ramp up,
and it can take you to a point
where you can even end up in the hospital,
and you start acting erratic,
as TMZ would put it.
[audience laughs and applauds]
[laughs]
So
But that's because the brain wants
what the brain gets.
-Yeah.
-And if you're not giving the brain
the steady diet of that,
it may do things
And I would use the word "diet"
in that case.
Yeah. So, I don't know
But what I wanna say
about the bi-polar thing is
because it has the word "bi" in it,
It has the idea of, like,
just split personality.
Well, that works for me,
because I'm a Gemini,
but when you ramp up,
it expresses your personality more.
You can become almost more adolescent
in your expression
or border into places.
This is my specific experience
that I've had over the past two years,
'cause I've only been diagnosed
for two years now. Yeah.
Now, can I ask you about this?
Because I am fascinated
You know, they say that we know
more about the universe
than we do about the human mind.
Well, I thought that was pretty good.
[laughing]
The synapses just say,
"Okay, we're fatigued.
We're not carrying
these messages anymore."
Is that a dumb, easy way to explain it?
Yeah, you know, that's the thing.
There's no dumb, easy way to explain.
It's just something that, you know,
we're going to have to
take time to understand.
There's things where you would've just,
you know, locked your
You know, a hundred years ago,
they might've locked their uncle
in the room. "Oh, you know, he"--
-Yeah, don't go in the attic.
-Yeah.
Bob's in the attic.
And now the attic is right here.
-[laughing]
-So
[laughs] Oh, my.
[West laughs]
So, we don't want to drag you
through this again, but--
-No, I'm fine to talk about it.
-Okay.
I'm totally
That's brave and courageous.
Yeah.
So, I always thought
that modern psychiatry
And there used to be state hospitals
in every state,
and I assume there still are,
but not to the degree they once were
before neuro pharmacological drugs
became proven and tested.
So, I always thought you go,
you talk to a psychiatrist,
and then they write you a prescription,
and that's probably more beneficial
for you than going to a psychiatrist
week after week.
Have you experienced both?
Yeah, they come in week after week,
basically
and make sure, you know,
that you're taking your prescribed drugs.
They come into where you are?
Well, for me, they would visit my house,
but I paid a lot for my doctors,
and part of the reason why
I'm backing the artist James Turrell
is his work has to deal
with light healing.
I'm starting to research these things,
because the experience of when you go
through an episode,
if you actually go to the hospital,
there's a moment I have to talk about
that has to be changed.
So, I'm gonna talk about this publicly
so this moment can change.
So, when you're in this state,
you're hyper-paranoid about everything.
Everyone. This is my experience.
Some people have other experiences.
Everyone now is an actor.
Everything is a conspiracy.
You see everything.
You feel the government is putting chips
in your head.
You feel you're being recorded.
You feel all of these things.
And these are vividly realistic to you.
Yes. And you get taken,
and you have this moment.
You feel everyone wants to kill you.
You pretty much don't trust anyone,
and they have this moment
where they put you, they handcuff you,
they drug you, they put you on the bed,
and they separate you
from everyone you know.
They don't do that to pregnant women.
That's something that I am so happy
that I experienced myself
so I can start by changing that moment.
You have to have [laughs]
When you are in that state,
you have to have someone you trust.
It is cruel and primitive to do that.
Here's another one that they love to do
when you get the stigma of crazy.
They love to write you off.
They love to cut
your sentences off halfway.
What you say doesn't mean as much.
Sometimes to me,
I think it's a form of protection for me,
because if I'm peeping something
that people don't want me to think about
or know or say out loud as a celebrity,
"Oh, he's just crazy,"
and then I go home.
-[audience laughs]
-Yeah. If they didn't think I was crazy,
it may be a problem.
Define it for me.
What is the mechanism
that is malfunctioning
or is taking a break in your brain?
Do you know?
I wouldn't be able to explain
that as much.
Just, you know,
'cause I'm not a doctor.
I can just tell you what I'm feeling
at the time,
and I feel a heightened connection
with the universe
when I'm ramping up.
It is a health issue
that has a strong stigma on it,
and people are allowed to say
anything about it
and discriminate in any way.
This is like a sprained brain.
Like having a sprained ankle.
And if someone has a sprained ankle,
you're not gonna push on him more.
-Right.
-With us, once our brain gets to a point
of spraining, people do everything
to make it worse.
They do everything possible
that got us to that point,
and they just do everything
to make it worse.
So, now, I heard you recently,
you said that you had been not on
any sort of pharmaceutical medication
for eight weeks? Eight months?
-What was it?
-About eight months.
Eight months. So
Do you run the risk of this coming back?
Will you always have this?
-Or is it episodic? Is it chronic?
-That's exactly what it is.
Like Snoop said,
"About to go to the next episode."
It is the next episode, but see,
something I wanted to point out is, like,
when we clap at the idea
of not being on medication
My form of mental health is, I think,
like, the luxury version of it.
Like, when people are schizophrenic
and they have deeper forms of that,
it's people who can't function
without medication.
So, I'm not advocating,
-I'm telling you my specific story.
-Right, and in a small way,
and I'm almost embarrassed
to invoke myself
into this conversation, but--
Oh, we're all dealing with mental health.
If you ever raise your voice
Because we're pushed into it.
We're driven crazy.
We forget who even are.
We're driven to, like, a certain type
of career that we're supposed to be.
We're, like,
completely bullied by the media,
both celebrities and the masses,
to think certain things
and have group thought.
Like, oh, yeah.
Damn right, we going crazy.
-Yeah. Well, the--
-I'm the most famous person with it,
and I only experienced it for two years.
What about people that's been experiencing
since they was two?
Okay, do you wanna, like, switch
to talking about Disney World?
[laughing]
What I was gonna say was,
and I sorta wrestled with this again
in a smaller way, that if you do something
with the circuitry, pharmaceutically,
that the creative process will suffer.
Did you worry about that? Do you believe
in that? Did you experience that?
Oh, yeah. That's just the reality.
You know, if you guys want
these crazy ideas and these crazy stages,
this crazy music
and this crazy way of thinking,
there's a chance it might come
from a crazy person.
[laughing]
But I think medical people would be
upset by that, because I resisted
taking medication for years
because of that very thought.
I thought, "Well, this is me,
and what is me has gotten me where I am,
so why would I want
to screw that up pharmaceutically?"
But what I discovered
upon taking the medication was
what was an obstacle to the,
forgive the expression in my case,
creative process, actually was removed.
Well, you obviously didn't have
a medication that made you fat.
-No. Not at all.
-[laughs]
But I used to be a guy who,
short-tempered, and I would pull phones
off the wall, and I would bang stuff,
and I would scream,
and I would throw fits,
and it would take two or three days
for this to burn out of me,
and finally my doctor, after ten years,
he said, "Oh, my God.
Try it! What are ya-- come on!
Let's go here!"
And it's a serotonin reuptake inhibitor.
It was like getting a new pair of glasses.
-[audience applauding]
-Yeah.
But you did get the Prada glasses.
[laughing]
-Oh, sure!
-If you had been
[Letterman laughs]
in high school, in a normal neighborhood
or something, they might
"Throw some 'tussin on it."
You know what I mean? It's just like
[laughs] It might not have been
as specified.
Even for me, when I went through
other episodes, they're like, "Oh, well,
all the sudden now, we got this version
of the drug that won't make you fat."
Why didn't y'all suggest that
in the first place?
[Letterman] Mm-hmm.
We can go and find things
that are silver bullets.
Things that just get to the thing
that's helpful. I'm sure
you've got a version that just got
to the thing that had as few
side effects as possible.
Well, the advances in targeting
situations that cause problems
neurologically, I think is remarkable,
and I think we're seeing it also happen
in the world of cancer,
so this day and age, it's hard to argue
with modern medicine.
I would, though. I love arguing.
We do not want to argue
with modern medicine.
We want to recognize
-that there are also primitive medicines.
-Well, alternative.
See, I'm completely with you on that,
because I think a combination
of the two influences is
the smart way to go.
So, if there was another way, like,
tea, you know?
[audience laughs]
Okay, now, can we talk
about the new record?
[laughing]
The first song on there is called
"I Thought About Killing You."
-Is that the name of the--
-Let's switch to something positive here.
Yeah.
I mean, under the circumstances,
the whole thing is menacing.
Is there something there that I don't get?
No, you get it.
It's a train of thought,
but what's cool is it's legal
to have the train of thought.
Think it all the way through.
Don't do it. [laughs]
-Right.
-Just think about what are all
the consequences, what are all this,
but I thought to be able to have that
be the first song on the album
still coming off of TMZ and coming off
all these different things, it's like,
the bravery, you know, was still there.
We, as human beings, have good
and bad thoughts.
There's no such thing
as the 100% good guy,
and there's no such thing
as the 100% bad guy.
You know, like, in the #MeToo era,
which we're still in, a bit,
but for that two years where men
in powerful positions were all like,
[gasps ] "What did I do
over the past 30 years of my life?"
That level of fear to place,
that we as a society
are constantly in fear.
-Well, you mention a general fear
-Yeah.
of the male side of this situation.
I would submit that it's not equal
by any equation to the fear women feel
being the other side of that.
[audience cheering]
[woman shouts] Yes!
I'm definitely supportive of the women.
What I'm saying is we're not allowed
to have any conversation.
When you go to court, both sides can talk.
This is a court of public opinion
that when someone bombs first,
the war is supposedly over.
These lessons are learned slowly,
and that may be the way
it's perceived now,
but with future reinforcement
and enlightenment,
there may be a more reasonable expression
of friendliness between the sexes
that isn't threatening to women.
What we realize is these changes are
pitifully slow.
Especially if you scared for your life
to talk about it.
-[audience applauds]
-[Letterman] Okay.
If you're scared to voice and say,
"I got an opinion that might not be
of the crowd, and I feel"--
This is the thing.
We don't all have to feel the same way
about things. This is my thing with Trump.
We don't have to feel the same way,
but we have the right to feel
what we feel, and we have the right
to have a conversation,
a dialogue, not a diatribe about it.
Like, say, when I wear the hat,
it's not about politics.
It's not about policies.
For me, once again: fear.
I got people that I work with, black,
female, all different types of people
that I work with that love Trump,
voted for Trump,
scared for life to tell anyone.
Did you vote for Trump?
I've never voted in my life.
Then then you don't have a say in this.
Oh!
[audience cheers and applauds]
Well, you got me.
[Letterman laughs]
You got me. Okay.
You got me.
-But--
-The--
-But let me say--
-But who says who has a say?
Obviously, I had a say
-when I said what I said.
-But now, let me
And I'll be honest,
I'm beginning to lose confidence
in the current administration. But!
[audience laughs]
Oh, I have been lost confidence
in all administrations.
It literally has a 13 Amendment.
We don't have 13th floors.
-But let me ask you--
-No, let me tell you
about that 13th Amendment,
exactly what that amendment is.
It's the amendment that has two million
black people locked up right now.
It says
[audience applauds]
"Slaves are free,
unless they commit a crime."
This was written by all white men and was
a crime for a slave to read at that time.
So, if they read the amendment,
they could be locked up.
It is in the Constitution today,
post-LeBron James, post-Obama.
Like, it's still there.
-Now, let me, can I--
-Oh, we not clapping to that one, though?
Oh, we
I know I'm just a guest,
but can I ask a question?
[laughs] Yeah.
-Yeah, go ahead.
-You know what I was stunned by
in the midterm elections was
the aggressive organization
and attempt at voter suppression.
Now, we're not talking about 1918,
we're talking about 2018,
and it's still going on
and being encouraged.
So, if I see a person I admire
talking about Donald Trump can think
whatever he does,
I wonder if those thoughts indirectly
aren't hurting people
who are already being hurt.
Well, how do you feel for the people
that voted for him that are being treated
like enemies of America
because that's what they felt,
and they had that opportunity?
Every time
there's a presidential election:
"Time for a change." It's endemic.
It's part of the system,
and it's what keeps this democracy
in motion, and it's always the argument,
"You know what this country needs?
Is a businessman to run it
like a business."
So, the people that voted for him,
I understand that, but I wonder to myself,
"Are these people ultimately going to be
victimized?"
And I think now, the people,
in good faith, looking to get the country
to help them a little more than it has
by electing a business guy,
I think are now being hurt for it,
and I would think that,
would not try it again.
Have you ever been beat up
in your high school
for wearing the wrong hat?
I just been beat up
'cause people didn't like me.
-Yeah.
-[audience laughs]
-But I know what you're saying.
-The idea is the bullying.
-Who's the bully in this scenario?
-Well, definitely liberals bully
people who are Trump supporters.
It's not just calm.
You can't just go and wear the hat.
You can't just go, it's like, "Fuck you!"
Like, it's like bro, I have
[laughing]
People, the thing is, in America,
we have rights,
and we have rights to open
the conversation.
Well, nobody's arguing
that there shouldn't be
-an ongoing conversation.
-Yeah.
I don't think you meet any resistance
there. Things need to be talked about.
Now, yesterday,
I feel lucky to have been invited
to a performance
of your work and of your orchestration
in a sound studio in Burbank, California.
It was so moving and inspirational
that I said to you, "I wish
my family had been here for this,"
because there's no way I'm gonna be able
to explain to them
what a lovely hour this was.
What can you tell us about this?
You call it the Sunday Service?
Yeah, I mean, we were really light
on even giving it a name.
It's just a idea that we had to
open up
our hearts and make music that we felt
was as pure and as positive as possible
and just do it for an hour every Sunday
and have something
where people can come together
and just feel good
with their families.
[West] When I went to the hospital
a couple years ago,
I was writing all these ideas down
like A Beautiful Mind,
and one of the ideas was to do a church,
and I was like
just, you know, it can be a scary concept
to go and just make one.
We went to visit James Turrell
at the Roden Crater in Arizona,
and when you're in that space,
I had to just you know,
take some steps back and say
the only thing that I can parallel
what James Turrell was doing would be
for me to contribute something musically
and to learn
more about sonics that are healing,
which I don't know about currently.
So, now, I'm on my path to learn.
I heard that there's certain
John Lennon or Bob Marley songs
that can move sand on a plate.
That frequencies can do that.
So, I've been
a so-called professional musician
you know, for 15, 20 years
and never thought about that till now.
[synthesized organ music]
You might take this off
Someday we gon get this off ♪
Baby, don't you bet it all
On a pack of Fentanyl ♪
You might think they wrote you off
They gon have to rope me off ♪
One day, the drama be gone
And I'm gon be your favorite song ♪
I'm on ♪
[West] We do our service in a circle,
and I removed the programmed drums.
Programming, like what I talked about.
The high-hats.
The 808 that usually hits inside
of the lowest chakra,
which is your sex chakra,
and then you have all the information
that one of God's favorite angels,
that was in charge of music, came down
and started putting messages in it.
You know, the Devil is also
the angel of music
and that his rib cage is shaped
like a harp.
So that 808 that a lot of our music is
[beat boxing]
And then they put over, "I'mma fuck
your bitch, I'mma kill you,"
and that's that frequency that's rolling,
and then, oh, here, pop this medication
while you pop some Mollys, pop some
and that is the standard culture
right now of music.
That is what's controlling it.
This pill, nightlife, all this.
We doing this in the light.
Someday ♪
I'm not gonna please everybody
Some days ♪
I wanna hit that red dot on everybody
Someday ♪
Please don't, then enough ♪
I'm smoking marijuana ♪
I'm just waking up and doing how I want
One day ♪
Someday, hey ♪
I wanna feel, I wanna say
Someday ♪
[Letterman] Tell me about the lighting.
I got that from James Turrell, because me,
you know, doing all these, like, pop tours
or going and opening up for U2
or going to see Daft Punk at Coachella,
I saw the way they would use strobe lights
and various things,
and it would get everyone really excited,
but Turrell's lights would pull you
into a Zen space,
and it's a reprogram
for us as human beings to not be
you know, just hit with all the imagery
and the messages and the ideas
that speed us up and get us excited
and more susceptible to fear,
but to be more calm and
more in the moment and stable.
I put my hand on the stove ♪
To see if I still bleed
To see if I can ♪
And nothing hurts anymore
I feel kind of free ♪
This is just a straight,
I'm just throwing paint right now.
-This is an early sketch. Yeah.
-Really?
So, what is your vision?
What is the objective here?
How will you know when it's complete?
How? There'll be world peace.
Well
I feel so free ♪
Just being me ♪
I didn't take all this time ♪
To become me, to listen to you ♪
So I'mma do what I wanna do ♪
I'mma do what I wanna do ♪
And I know sometimes people be looking
so confused, but
there's basically two buttons in this game
called life: love and fear,
and some of us are just programmed
to be more scared than others,
but I represent that overcoming fear
and still being here,
'cause they say,
"You can't do that. You can't do this.
You'll lose your career."
But I'm still here ♪
[cheering]
I put my hand on a ♪
Keep my hands on the stove.
Let me bleed ♪
That's when I'm free ♪
Listen, there are many, many things
that we haven't had a chance to get to.
I wonder how that happened.
[laughing]
[Letterman] It's been great fun.
-God bless you, my friend.
-Thank you so much, man.
Kanye West.
[West] Bro! Thanks.
-Thank you for everything. I mean that.
-This is fucking heavy, bro. All right.
Good luck to you and your family.
-Thank you very much, folks!
-Yeah.
I am free ♪
Someday ♪
Yes, what I've been telling
All the time ♪
They're still against me, it's true ♪
Someday ♪
Never grow up ♪
I put my hand on the stove ♪
To see if I still bleed ♪
And nothing hurts anymore
I feel kind of free ♪
Someday ♪
Hey! ♪
[theme music playing]