Ye — formerly known as Kanye West — sat down (actually stood up) for an explosive interview with DJ Akademiks earlier this March.
After making about “eight edits” at the request of West’s team, Ak premiered the interview during a live stream on Sunday (March 30).
The Chicago native controlled the pace of the interview while touching on recent hot-button topics surrounding him, such as his unhinged tweets about Jay-Z’s children, beefing with Playboi Carti, Drake, Kendrick Lamar and even his relationship with ex-wife Kim Kardashian.
West pulled up to the hotel room interview in a Black KKK-inspired hood and blouse, as he attempted to clear up and provide context to some of his controversial remarks before jetting to Japan.
Ye admitted he is yet to wear the Ku Klux Klan-influenced outfit in public, since he’s worried someone will “try to put me in the hospital for my outfit.”
West has laid low on X for about the last 10 days following a series of explosive rants targeting his peers, the Kardashian family, the Jewish community and more.
There wasn’t much talk surrounding Ye’s upcoming music following release of his Bully short film, which he leaked intentionally. It’s unknown if the project will ever come to streaming services in the future.
With Ak and Ye talking for over an hour, check out eight things we learned from their conversation below.
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He Didn’t Want to Have Kids With Kim Kardashian
Kanye has targeted Kim Kardashian and the Kardashian family as a whole when it comes to the custody of his children. West, who married Kim in 2014 and finalized their divorce in 2022, revealed he actually never wanted to have children with Kardashian. The former couple shares four children (North, Saint, Psalm and Chicago).
“No, that was my fault. I take it,” he said. “I didn’t want to have children with this person after the first two months of being with her. But that wasn’t God’s plan.”
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He Thinks Drake Is ‘A Million Times Better’ & ‘More Important’ Than Kendrick Lamar
Ye and Drake have enjoyed a love-hate relationship over the years, and West seemingly flipped sides in the Drizzy-Kendrick Lamar battle. Now, Ye is defending Drake, while saying he’s “a million times better” and “more important” of an artist than Lamar.
“One thing is, Drake is a million times better than Kendrick and a million times more important,” he said. “What Future has done, [Young] Thug, Drake, culturally — that s–t last year, I could barely sit through that s–t. That s–t was insane, bro. Had Lucian Grainge, Universal, Drake lawsuit s–t written all over it.
Ye added: “At the end of the day, all this s–t I’m saying – Jim Jones, Kendrick, all these celebrities – the funny thing is, we’re all in the same boat.”
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He Calls Playboi Carti Betrayal the ‘Final Heartbreak’ & Says They Were Working on Joint Mixtape
Kanye felt betrayed by being allegedly removed from Playboi Carti’s Music album. His anger was taken to another level when Carti reposted Kim Kardashian following his Skims shout-out on the project, which led to him asking for his “niece” North West to send over some vocals. West felt the Atlanta rapper crossed the line by that point.
“What one of my actual friends or someone that can call my daughter their niece would reach out to a woman that I got issues with?” West asked. “I know that is not street code.”
“You’re reposting my baby momma and not even reposting me,” he said. “You were the first feature on Donda. It’s like the Carti s–t is like the final heartbreak.”
West also revealed that he was working on a joint mixtape with Carti prior to Music‘s arrival.
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He Doesn’t Back Off Dissing Jay-Z & Beyoncé’s Children
West doubled down on his insulting of Jay-Z and Beyoncé’s twins, Sir and Rumi, who he flagrantly called “r—–ded” in a since-deleted tweet earlier in March.
“Everything is like, ‘But you offended Jay-Z.’ F–k him,” Ye bluntly told Akademiks. “Put it like this — let’s take it to money — how much money you think Jay-Z makes off my catalog versus what I make off it? Next subject.”
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He Explains Why He Keeps Dissing Virgil Abloh
Ye has continued to diss his former friend and collaborator in the late Virgil Abloh, who passed away from a rare form of cancer in 2021. In a series of recent tweets, he said it’s still “f–k Virgil.” When asked about his animosity toward the Louis Vuitton designer, Ye succinctly replied: “I’m evil.”
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He Thinks One of His Songs Ended Frank Ocean’s Career
Frank Ocean hasn’t released an album since Blonde in 2016, but Kanye believes Donda‘s “Moon” featuring Kid Cudi and Don Toliver officially ended his career five years later.
“Like when I made, ‘Moon,’ it basically ended Frank Ocean’s career. He ain’t have a song since then. He talking, ‘Sipping some wine.’ I knew it I heard it, I was like, ‘Oh, this n—a not gonna be able to make another album again,’” he claimed. “Any genre of music that anyone has, I make a better version of it. I’m 10 times stronger at music than anyone living.”
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He Claims Record Label Threatened Ty Dolla $ign’s Career, Pressured the Artist to Denounce Ye
In February, Ty Dolla $ign released a vague statement denouncing hate speech to his Instagram Story. He didn’t name Ye specifically, but many believed it was tied to West’s recent statements as the pair collaborated on a pair of Vultures joint albums in 2024.
“I do not condone ANY form of hate speech against ANYONE,” he wrote at the time.
West claimed that Ty Dolla was threatened by his record label, that he had to denounce Ye in some fashion publicly or they would allegedly cancel his tours and drop Leon Thomas from his EZMNY Records imprint.
“They literally called Ty Dolla and said — and this is coercion, that’s why these n—as are gonna be locked up one day — they said you have to denounce Ye publicly or we’re gonna drop your artist, Leon [Thomas] [and] cancel all your tours,” he said. “They on some mob s–t.”
Ye continued: “They up here threatening n—as, stopping they money. This is real-life s–t off of a statement. Off of me wearing a motherf–king chain. Off of me wearing they pain. But they playing, turning up, promoting off of our pain.”
