Writer Jon Caramanica spent three days interviewing Kanye about his nebulous extra-musical ambitions, the arc of his career, and the new direction indicated by Yeezus, a bleak drive down an electro-nihilist autobahn that West describes as “aspirational minimalism.” As Caramanica notes in his excellent introduction to the interview, Yet the mere fact of his presence on the front page of the Sunday Times Arts section signaled a crucial shift in his relationship to the public, an improbable point at which his untethered narcissistic sensibility had found a wider audience eager to call it art. Wearing a red balaclava, thick gold chain, and high-end black T-shirt, his arms crossed and his eyes closed in the deliberate manner of someone affecting impatience, he looks more like a petulant character from Wes Anderson’s cutting room floor than a self-styled agit-pop provocateur – maybe a stowaway fashion student on Steve Zissou’s ship with dreams of becoming a mercenary. The accompanying image of West, snapped by fashion photographer Nick Knight, speaks volumes.

In the lead-up to the deafeningly overhyped debut of Yeezus (2013), his sixth studio album, the New York Times featured him on the cover of its Sunday Arts section (“Behind Kanye’s Mask”) for an interview. Art as Atonementįor all his presumptions of being misunderstood, Kanye West has received more critical adoration over the course of a decade than most artists will find in a lifetime. The book is available for pre-order on Amazon,, and wherever 33 1/3s are sold. The following is an excerpt from Kanye West’s My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy by Kirk Walker Graves, out June 19.

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