Kanye West served as a guest lecturer at Oxford University in England, where he spoke on a number of unrelated topics including class divide, Steve Jobs and his daughter North. Here are 10 of the craziest things the rapper said during the address, as reported by Us Weekly:
1. On asking questions: “Okay, everyone please be completely quiet, because I can literally hear a whisper, and it’ll throw off my stream of consciousness, and when I get my stream of consciousness going that’s when I give the best, illest quotes.”
2. On his dreams in school: “My goal, if I was going to do art, fine art, would have been to become Picasso or greater.”
3. On his faith: “There’s a Bible saying, ‘No weapon formed against me shall prosper.’ Recently I’ve been doing interviews and I’ve had to go back to this verse because I don’t think there’s a living celebrity with more weapons formed against them, but I also don’t think there’s one more prosperous.”
4. On Steve Jobs’ death: “I love Steve Jobs, he’s my favorite person, but there’s one thing that disappoints me. When Steve passed, he didn’t give the ideas up. That’s kinda selfish.”
5. On name dropping: “I understand that I’m a servant. And with my voice, with my ability to build relationships with amazing people, speak to amazing people. Call [entrepreneur] Elon Musk out of the blue, or call Obama out of the blue … he calls the home phone, by the way.”
6. On buying gifts for North: “I’d see toys that some people would buy for my daughter and I’d say this toy isn’t quality. I don’t want my daughter playing with this.”
7. On the cost of clothing: “In America people really do wear $3,000 shirts. For real.”
8. On parenthood: “People say it takes a village to raise a child. People ask me how my daughter is doing. She’s only doing good if your daughter’s doing good. We’re all one family.”
9. On his big ego: “One of my biggest Achilles’ heels has been my ego. And if I, Kanye West, the very person, can remove my ego, I think there’s hope for everyone.”
10. On being controlled: “My momma taught me that if I was in a grocery store and I’m by myself and a stranger grabbed my hand, scream at the top of your f**king lungs. If I’m at an awards show and a stranger grabs my hand and they say, ‘So we’re going to use these moving lights, or we’re gonna play the music right now before we define the look, or we’re gonna cut the TV cameras in a traditional way,’ I’ll scream at the top of my f**king lungs.”
